Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: This week on the podcast, I have an extra special guest.
Speaker 1: His name is Bruce van so On. He is the
Speaker 1: chairman and CEO of Citizens Financial Group. They are a
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty five billion dollar bank, the twelfth largest
Speaker 1: in the United States. If you are at all interested
Speaker 1: in banking, financing, middle market, private equity, just a whole
Speaker 1: run of different um aspects of the financial services world,
Speaker 1: you're going to find this conversation to be quite interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: Bruce is really a very knowledgeable and articulate UM spokesman
Speaker 1: on not only behalf of his bank, but the banking
Speaker 1: industry in general. He has a really good insight as
Speaker 1: to what's going on in both the industry and the economy.
Speaker 1: So I I found this conversation to be fascinating and
Speaker 1: I think you will also. With no further ado, my
Speaker 1: interview with Bruce van Soon. This is Masters in Business
Speaker 1: with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg Radio. My special guest this
Speaker 1: week is Bruce van Soon. He is the chairman and
Speaker 1: chief executive officer of Citizens Financial Group. UH. They were
Speaker 1: spun out from RBS back in where Van so On
Speaker 1: led a successful initial public offering. Previously, he had been
Speaker 1: executive director on the RBS board for the prior four
Speaker 1: or five years. Before that, he was vice chairman and
Speaker 1: CFO at the Bank of New York Nellan. His previous
Speaker 1: career stints include Deutsche Bank, Washerstein, Perella, and Kidder Peabody.
Speaker 1: Bruce van Son, Welcome to Bloomberg. Thanks my pleasure to
Speaker 1: be here, Barry. Let's start at the Bank of New
Speaker 1: York and Bank of New York Mellon. Where were you
Speaker 1: during the financial crisis, which what was the name at
Speaker 1: the time. Well, I had left by then, so I
Speaker 1: joined Bank in New York. In the biggest crisis I
Speaker 1: experienced there was when eleven hit and we were basically
Speaker 1: out of business there for a few days, and we
Speaker 1: had to scramble to get the bank back on its feet.
Speaker 1: But how you downtown One Wall Street was the headquarters
Speaker 1: building and the Barclays was Street was the operations center,
Speaker 1: and so we were kind of straddling the World Trade
Speaker 1: Center buildings, and when you couldn't have access to downtown,
Speaker 1: we had to work out of other offices that we
Speaker 1: scrambled to secure, and then we had to stand up
Speaker 1: a new data center with IBM's help in Sterling Forest,
Speaker 1: So that was an exciting period. How long did it
Speaker 1: take for you guys to get back up and running, Well,
Speaker 1: it was it was a couple of days, uh, and
Speaker 1: then we had a lot of pressure to basically start
Speaker 1: moving money and move securities and clear out the backlog
Speaker 1: that had piled up for a couple of days. So
Speaker 1: you had backup facilities you weren't just that wasn't the
Speaker 1: sole location. It was relatively easy to turn but we
Speaker 1: didn't have the same kind of resiliency that banks have today.
Speaker 1: So after in the wake of that, Bank in York
Speaker 1: went out and built a brand new spanking data center
Speaker 1: out in Tennessee, UM and so we're constantly ready to
Speaker 1: flip over, but we weren't at that level of resiliency
Speaker 1: at that time. The cloud has changed everything for banks
Speaker 1: and financial instation. I think the cloud is part of that.
Speaker 1: So part of it was just making the investment and
Speaker 1: recognizing the need for a higher level of resiliency. But
Speaker 1: now moving things to the cloud and running your infrastructure
Speaker 1: in the cloud I think offers some great promise to
Speaker 1: lower costs and also increased security and you were at
Speaker 1: RBS then in o eight oh nine is the yes,
Speaker 1: so so uh the reason I missed the crisis we
Speaker 1: had merged with Melon and uh I stayed through the transition.
Speaker 1: We had appointed a new CEO, so I wanted to
Speaker 1: go do something else, and I was out by July
Speaker 1: of oh eight. The crisis was in the fall of
Speaker 1: oh eight, so it was nice not to be in
Speaker 1: the hot seat during that. I was working in private
Speaker 1: equity for about a year trying to put deals together,
Speaker 1: and then RBS came a calling. They had wanted to
Speaker 1: put a new management team in place to help right
Speaker 1: the ship after RBS took a tumble in the crisis
Speaker 1: and needed a government bailout, so I joined Stephen Hester.
Speaker 1: There I was the CFO, and uh we had a
Speaker 1: lot of surgery do in terms of shrinking the bank
Speaker 1: and getting it back to safety. So you mentioned private equity.
Speaker 1: Citizens Financial is sort of a can I call them
Speaker 1: a middleware sort of bank does a lot of work
Speaker 1: with um not the giant entities out there, but a
Speaker 1: lot of very other large entities that I think are
Speaker 1: a little below the reader of the public. Is that
Speaker 1: A yeah, So here's the you know, the kind of
Speaker 1: Laya the land in terms of our commercial business, so h,
Speaker 1: we focus on middle market companies, which are maybe twenty
Speaker 1: five million to five million in revenues, and then also
Speaker 1: the mid corporate segment, which is five hundred million to
Speaker 1: about three billion in revenues. Over time since I've joined Citizens,
Speaker 1: we've taken the middle market customer a count from about
Speaker 1: two thousand up to about three thousand, and mid corporates
Speaker 1: we've taken from about five hundred up to about a thousand.
Speaker 1: So uh, we've grown faster at the bigger company end. Uh.
Speaker 1: And what you need there to be competitive is you
Speaker 1: need bankers with industry expertise. So we had to go
Speaker 1: out and recruit in some bankers for technology or healthcare, energy, uh,
Speaker 1: so they could really serve those customers well, and they
Speaker 1: could bring previous relationships from their last bank over to Citizens.
Speaker 1: And so we've had some some really nice growth. Uh.
Speaker 1: But we're not focusing on the household name. Fortune five
Speaker 1: companies were staying a little bit below that radar, and
Speaker 1: we can compete very effectively against the mega banks. There's
Speaker 1: oftentimes we're leading deals and we'll have jp more going
Speaker 1: to be of a on our right or we're winning
Speaker 1: a swap transaction against the megabanks. So we have really
Speaker 1: good cape abilities, but we stay focused on an area
Speaker 1: that that we know and we can compete effectively. So
Speaker 1: I've noticed on Wall Street UM, hedge funds and venture
Speaker 1: capital seems to be going through a bit of a
Speaker 1: rough batch. But private equity just is a house of fire.
Speaker 1: It just expands rapidly. How does that? Well, private equity
Speaker 1: is is a good customer segment for us in the
Speaker 1: commercial bank, and we have focused over time on say
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty sponsors that we know well, uh, that
Speaker 1: we think they're good operators. Uh. They invest wisely, uh,
Speaker 1: and they're good to their banks and when they need
Speaker 1: to put equity back into a deal to right the
Speaker 1: ship if something is a little stressed, uh, they do that.
Speaker 1: So uh, that's where we've stayed focused. We haven't tried
Speaker 1: to move and compete for all the business that's taking
Speaker 1: place there. And I think clients selection has been really critical.
Speaker 1: So those firms know us well, they give us the
Speaker 1: swings at the bat, they let us lead trans actions
Speaker 1: and then also provide more services to their investee companies.
Speaker 1: So that's been a really good strategy for us, I
Speaker 1: would say, Uh, similarly with commercial real estate, Uh, the
Speaker 1: developers we focus on, we've known for a long time.
Speaker 1: We think they're good operators, and so again we build
Speaker 1: those strong relationships and we get good swings at the
Speaker 1: bat when they're doing things, and I like to include
Speaker 1: us in the deals that they do, and then they
Speaker 1: give us a chance to get more of their wallet
Speaker 1: because they know we have the capabilities. That sounds quite
Speaker 1: quite interesting. So let's start with a really broad topic.
Speaker 1: Since the crisis ended in O nine, there have been
Speaker 1: just enormous changes in banking and regulation even the entire economy.
Speaker 1: How has the role of a CEO running a bank
Speaker 1: changed over this period? How has banking changed over the period.
Speaker 1: It's a very broad question, U. I'll break that down. So,
Speaker 1: you know, after the crisis, it was clear that there
Speaker 1: needed to be some reforms first around, i'd say the
Speaker 1: prudential regulation about how banks, uh, did they have enough capital,
Speaker 1: did they have the right funding and liquidity structures and
Speaker 1: so um, where they're managing risk the right way. So
Speaker 1: we had a whole framework that was put in place
Speaker 1: that was agreed globally basically around capital, liquidity, funding, running
Speaker 1: stress tests, uh and I think that was really positive.
Speaker 1: So we learned a lot from the crisis and we
Speaker 1: put those lessons to use. Uh So a big part
Speaker 1: of our efforts early days was to make sure that
Speaker 1: we were keeping up with those increasing demands around the
Speaker 1: prudent regulation. The second element of regulation was around really
Speaker 1: conducting culture, and so banks I think weren't always that
Speaker 1: transparent with their fees, and sometimes they were working against
Speaker 1: their customers that are working for their customers, so they're
Speaker 1: needed to be changed there as well. And so that
Speaker 1: whole agenda came in in the second wave after the
Speaker 1: credential agenda, and I think that's also been very positive
Speaker 1: in terms of creating the right mindset and culture inside banks,
Speaker 1: in terms of, you know, we have to be the
Speaker 1: trusted advisor. We have to be working for the benefit
Speaker 1: of our customers, giving them good advice, being simple, being
Speaker 1: transparent on our fees. Have we come full circles when
Speaker 1: we come a long way, you know. The one kind
Speaker 1: of bump in the road, unfortunately, was the Wells Fargo
Speaker 1: selling scandal, which kind of made folks think, well, maybe
Speaker 1: there hasn't been any change here in banks, when in fact,
Speaker 1: I think most of the banks had come through and
Speaker 1: made the appropriate changes, so that yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: was it. That was a black eye for the industry,
Speaker 1: and they're paying the piper for that. They now have
Speaker 1: a new CEO and they're working hard on their regulatory
Speaker 1: equation and it's been a great bank for deck generations
Speaker 1: and will continue to be. I think they'll get back
Speaker 1: on track. But that was that was unfortunate for the industry,
Speaker 1: I think. Uh, so the regulatory agenda was a big
Speaker 1: thing to keep up with. The second thing that's changed
Speaker 1: a lot is uh. You know, technology has moved in
Speaker 1: warp speed to kind of dimensions nobody thought possible. So
Speaker 1: moving infrastructure to the cloud, UH, new ways of development
Speaker 1: around an agile framework which speeds things up. UH. Going
Speaker 1: to digital first business models, UH, using data to personalize
Speaker 1: offers to your customers so they don't waste their time. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, you see what's happening in other industries, and
Speaker 1: customer expectations for change and for a level of service
Speaker 1: have really increased given what they see elsewhere, and so
Speaker 1: banks have had to make the investments and go through
Speaker 1: significant change in the business model to to to meet
Speaker 1: those expectations. So it's really kept it very interesting to
Speaker 1: to keep up with all the change that we've had
Speaker 1: to over over the last few years. You know, when
Speaker 1: the new CEO of Vanguard came in the his answer
Speaker 1: to a question I found most fascinating, what what keeps
Speaker 1: you up? In his answer was security and hackers? How
Speaker 1: big a deal is that? And is technology helping us
Speaker 1: in this space or or making it worse? Well, um,
Speaker 1: to be in arms. I think it is a big deal.
Speaker 1: And I think most CEOs of financial institutions trusted with
Speaker 1: keeping customers assets and data safe have to have that
Speaker 1: as the top issue on the priority list, top risk
Speaker 1: that we face. Uh. Fortunately, UM, there are advances in
Speaker 1: technology and new tools to actually help protect all of
Speaker 1: those those assets and that data. Uh. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it also requires hiring top talent. UM. We
Speaker 1: feel really good at Citizens. We've hired a leading expert
Speaker 1: in cybersecurity, has had some big jobs elsewhere, who um,
Speaker 1: I think, knows what good looks like and has moved
Speaker 1: us into the future very very quickly, has good followership,
Speaker 1: has brought a aditional good people into the organization, and
Speaker 1: then we've prioritized the tools that she needs to really
Speaker 1: keep the banks safe. So that kind of goes right
Speaker 1: to the top of the capital expenditure list, and I
Speaker 1: think that will continue to be the case because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of bad guys out there. They don't come
Speaker 1: into branches with a stocking over their head and a
Speaker 1: water pistol and pass a note to the teller anymore.
Speaker 1: That's less and less the way that Yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: you know, much more sophisticated. Now they're sitting in a
Speaker 1: you know, in a cafe, hacking away, buying you know,
Speaker 1: data off the black market, and trying to figure out
Speaker 1: ways to to steal people's assets. Unbelievable. So you lead
Speaker 1: the I p O in what was that process like
Speaker 1: going public? And how happy are you that you're not,
Speaker 1: you know, a tech unicorn having to face what companies
Speaker 1: like Uber and well, look, I think citizens had that
Speaker 1: great foundation serving a good part of the country. Because
Speaker 1: of the troubles of the parents, there was a lot
Speaker 1: of work to do. So the balance sheet had shrunk
Speaker 1: dramatically and hadn't kept pace in some ways investing in
Speaker 1: technology and in our fee based businesses, and so there
Speaker 1: was work to do when we had the deadline in
Speaker 1: terms of taking in public. The best I could do
Speaker 1: really was assemble a strong team and board, uh, put
Speaker 1: together a really good plan and have a vision where
Speaker 1: we could take the company. But it was you know,
Speaker 1: we had to do it within a year, and so
Speaker 1: we were still operating at relatively poor profitability levels and
Speaker 1: we still had a lot of gaps, but we had
Speaker 1: a good story to tell. So actually just getting the
Speaker 1: deal done and getting investors to kind of buy the promise. Uh,
Speaker 1: and by our experience and our vision felt really good.
Speaker 1: So that was that was important to get that done
Speaker 1: and launch that. UM. I would say, you know the
Speaker 1: experience of going public really helped facilitate our turnaround because uh,
Speaker 1: usually UH divestitures banks get sold, they don't get I
Speaker 1: p oed. So this was opportunity for me to assemble
Speaker 1: a management team and say, look, we're in a unique
Speaker 1: situation where we get the keys to the car and
Speaker 1: we have the steering wheel and we can take this
Speaker 1: bank where we want to. So we can build a
Speaker 1: great bank over time, and you're gonna be a key
Speaker 1: player in doing that. So that allowed us to I
Speaker 1: think attract the levels of talent that had citizens stayed
Speaker 1: a part of our BS we would not have been
Speaker 1: able to do. And ultimately, in any organization, you win
Speaker 1: with great people when you win with talent. Uh So
Speaker 1: that was that was really positive. I think the other
Speaker 1: thing also is that it kind of shook up the
Speaker 1: culture at citizens that as a sub of a foreign
Speaker 1: entity that has its own troubles, you could get comfortable
Speaker 1: and a bit complacent. And so now we had public
Speaker 1: shareholders who wanted to hear about the long term vision,
Speaker 1: but they wanted to see good execution in the near
Speaker 1: term to towards that path. Uh And so we had
Speaker 1: a higher level accountability that we embedded into the culture.
Speaker 1: Uh So we're accountable to shareholders and we're accountable others
Speaker 1: to serve our customers better and to run the bank better.
Speaker 1: So you sit on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Speaker 1: board representing other banks, what is what is that experience? Like? Oh,
Speaker 1: that's great? Uh So? Uh if you if you flash
Speaker 1: back to the last two years, I was on the
Speaker 1: Federal Advisory Council. So I was representing the the Boston
Speaker 1: Fed District in meeting with the FED Board of Governors
Speaker 1: and talking about issues and making uh you know, giving
Speaker 1: color on economic conditions and offering advice on certain financial matters.
Speaker 1: So that was good. And then I rolled onto the
Speaker 1: to the Boston Fed and so we talked about the
Speaker 1: economic conditions in the New England region. Uh, we talk
Speaker 1: about the macro economic dynamics and where interest rates are
Speaker 1: and where they where they should go because uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the Boston Fed president gets a vote in terms of
Speaker 1: what to do with interest rates, so you're an influencer
Speaker 1: of him, but not a voting member obviously, yeah, obviously. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So quite interesting. And you're on the board of Moodies
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. This is post crisis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what is that experience? Well, you know, you missed all
Speaker 1: the fun. Well what's interesting is, uh, you know, most
Speaker 1: ceo s can have one outside board slot. Um and
Speaker 1: even when I was a CFO for many years, I
Speaker 1: always had an outside board slot. When I was in
Speaker 1: the UK, I was on Lloyd's of London's board. That's
Speaker 1: quite the entity. And I found that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: would complement what I was doing as an executive because
Speaker 1: their specialists and risk management, that's our principal responsibilities to
Speaker 1: make sure we're running a safe and sound institution. And
Speaker 1: so when I came back from the UK and came
Speaker 1: into the US. I was looking for a job that
Speaker 1: would also be complementary where I could continue to uh
Speaker 1: stay in tune with the latest developments in risk management
Speaker 1: and kind of seeing the lay of the land about
Speaker 1: how Moodies thought about global risks. And so that was
Speaker 1: just a natural thing to for me to go from
Speaker 1: Lloyd's of London go onto the board of Moodies. So
Speaker 1: I've been a critic over the years of the rating agencies,
Speaker 1: primarily S and P. When you look at the fines
Speaker 1: post crisis, I think Moody's paid a million dollar fine.
Speaker 1: SMP paid billions and billions in finals, and it wasn't
Speaker 1: quite that much of a spread. I think SMP billion
Speaker 1: settlement with the with the d J was about a
Speaker 1: billion three and Moodies was about eight. That they were
Speaker 1: ultimately but they but they pretty much seemed to have
Speaker 1: gotten much less blame in the popular press than SMPA.
Speaker 1: I I don't know why that is, but uh, you're
Speaker 1: you're this predated you by yeah. I mean we had
Speaker 1: that we that we settled while I was there on
Speaker 1: the board, so we got involved in looking at the
Speaker 1: facts and looking at the allegations, but I do think
Speaker 1: Moody's fact pattern generally was was in pretty good shape.
Speaker 1: But still there was some some culpability. Weren't going to
Speaker 1: escape without some culpability. And I don't know you very well,
Speaker 1: but I suspect from everything I've learned about you preparing
Speaker 1: for this, I suspect you're the sort of guy who
Speaker 1: comes in and says, let's get this resolved, let's move on.
Speaker 1: We have a business to run. This happened before, it
Speaker 1: predates my involvement. Let's write that check and get on
Speaker 1: with all. Well, I'm just I'm just one board member.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we had those types of conversations. I can
Speaker 1: imagine that the market is really focused on the future.
Speaker 1: They don't like to have these overhangs on the past,
Speaker 1: and so you just gotta put them behind you. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about Apple. You know, when when
Speaker 1: I first started um reading about citizens Financial, my initial
Speaker 1: response was why is that name so familiar? And I
Speaker 1: just punched it into the search of my computer. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they finance are our iPhones? UM, tell us a little
Speaker 1: bit about how did that come about? What? How I
Speaker 1: know that's a relatively minor UM thing in the overall
Speaker 1: revenues of the bank. But it's kind of interesting because
Speaker 1: it is a name brand, and you guys are pretty
Speaker 1: much very public with To be to be a partner
Speaker 1: for the most iconic company on the planet, in my view,
Speaker 1: really is a lot of credibility for us. So we're
Speaker 1: quite pleased that we hold that position. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: we had worked with Apple early days when we were
Speaker 1: building up our student loan business, uh, potentially with a
Speaker 1: notion that we could help them finance the purchases of
Speaker 1: their equipment in student book stores in college, and that
Speaker 1: program didn't really fulfill its potential. Um, But I think
Speaker 1: we got to know them well and they liked our
Speaker 1: focus on the customer and really obsession around the customer
Speaker 1: experience because that's really defines Apple. So when they were
Speaker 1: thinking about the upgrade program and how to sell more
Speaker 1: phones through their stores, we helped work with them on
Speaker 1: that program and design the financing for that program. Uh.
Speaker 1: And I think we built a very effective platform to
Speaker 1: process those transactions. So there's a very small window of
Speaker 1: time that as you know, since you've in it twelve months, well,
Speaker 1: but you go into the store, you pick your phone,
Speaker 1: and then you, we have a little window to make
Speaker 1: a decision do we want to finance you in the
Speaker 1: program or not, and without getting a lot of information.
Speaker 1: So we've built a very good credit decision ing model
Speaker 1: and then a very good processing capability behind the scenes
Speaker 1: that leads to a very good customer experience, a very
Speaker 1: highly rated NPS within the Apple store experience. So, uh, anyways,
Speaker 1: pretty instantaneous. Yeah, it's it's gone exceptionally well. On on
Speaker 1: the days when they launch a new uh phone. Uh,
Speaker 1: we get massive volume that we have to process, and
Speaker 1: we've always been able to flawlessly execute all that volume.
Speaker 1: So so I think it's been a good partnership. And Uh,
Speaker 1: the nice thing is the technology platform that we built
Speaker 1: for Apple, we can move and offer it to other
Speaker 1: merchants and adapted to to the needs of other merchants.
Speaker 1: And so today we also have a d T and
Speaker 1: vivin to smart alarm. Companies are running similar programs, and
Speaker 1: we have a number of other big household names in
Speaker 1: the queue. And so I kind of tease investors, I say,
Speaker 1: stay tuned, watched this space, because we're gonna announce a
Speaker 1: rollout to some other very highly regarded companies. So I'm
Speaker 1: curious as to how this works because when the first
Speaker 1: time we went to an Apple store too, and I'm
Speaker 1: always complaining I'm a power user phones and after a
Speaker 1: year the battery life starts to die. The last phone,
Speaker 1: I replaced the battery at month fourteen, and I said, wait,
Speaker 1: twelve months, new phone? What do I sign up for that?
Speaker 1: It was a pretty surprisingly quit. You punch a bunch
Speaker 1: of things in data birth so, security, name, address, and
Speaker 1: it's like eight seconds later you get approval. I assume
Speaker 1: you're looking at things like credit score, payment history, etcetera.
Speaker 1: What what how many data points go into that that
Speaker 1: it could be that's a number of data points. We
Speaker 1: don't want to give away the full secret, Sauceberry, but
Speaker 1: you know, I think we feel quite confident of our
Speaker 1: ability to make good decisions. And I think we now
Speaker 1: have been at the program now for a number of years,
Speaker 1: and so we've seen the performance of all the different vintages, uh,
Speaker 1: and they've performed at or above expectations. Do you tweak
Speaker 1: this on an ongoing basis? It's always how do we
Speaker 1: make it a little better and a little that's that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of interesting. So I have to think this
Speaker 1: new iPhone eleven the week it comes out, what is
Speaker 1: that like? Is this just a giant fire hose of
Speaker 1: data or there's there's a big swell of volume. Uh
Speaker 1: and uh. It's great for Apple. I think they're pleased
Speaker 1: with how the eleven is being received in the marketplace,
Speaker 1: and it's gotten great reviews. And despite the price, it's
Speaker 1: pretty expensive. Well, they've had had a two tier price,
Speaker 1: so I think, and you could get the eight for
Speaker 1: a very cheap. They've now covered the full spectrum of
Speaker 1: prices as opposed to just being right. So I think
Speaker 1: they've thought it through in terms of features and pricing
Speaker 1: and alternatives. And it's meeting a good reception, which is
Speaker 1: good for us. That means there's gonna be good demand
Speaker 1: for the phone. People continue to participate in the upgrade program,
Speaker 1: and so we continue to grow the balances onto the program.
Speaker 1: I'm an ideal client for you, guys. We walk in,
Speaker 1: what's the biggest phone, what's the top of line? Give
Speaker 1: me extra storage? Wait it's fifty bucks a month, Okay, great,
Speaker 1: we'll take two. It really is a very simple thing,
Speaker 1: and the only problem is you want to upgrade after
Speaker 1: a year, and sometimes you're waiting a couple of months
Speaker 1: for new phone, so you end up holding onto it.
Speaker 1: But then but you're never really obsoletely, you're always getting
Speaker 1: the latest and greatest, which after the very appealing. Well,
Speaker 1: some people don't care, other people want whatever. The most
Speaker 1: buzzworthy thing is I am an early adopter, even though
Speaker 1: it can occasionally be painful when you buy things before
Speaker 1: they're really ready for prime time. UM, thankfully I passed
Speaker 1: on the Google Glass. But any time I have an
Speaker 1: opportunity to upgrade the phone, I'm I'm, I'm there right away. Good.
Speaker 1: I have to think that where you sit in the economy,
Speaker 1: looking at consumers, looking at other um businesses and entrepreneurs,
Speaker 1: you have to get a really early read on any
Speaker 1: changes in the economy. Is that a fair statement or
Speaker 1: am I overstating it? Yeah? No, Look, we're kind of
Speaker 1: cover three regions of the country. So we have New England,
Speaker 1: mid Atlantic and Upper Midwest within our footprint, three very
Speaker 1: different economies economies, and we cover, as I said earlier,
Speaker 1: the mid mid corporate middle market all the way down
Speaker 1: to small business, and then we have a very big
Speaker 1: consumer business. So the balance of our businesses is roughly
Speaker 1: fifty fifty between uh corporate and and also uh the consumer.
Speaker 1: Uh so we get it. We got quite a good
Speaker 1: read on uh, you know, both data in terms of,
Speaker 1: you know how how are borrowing patterns, how our charge
Speaker 1: card usage, etcetera. Uh, and then also anecdotes just what
Speaker 1: are we hearing from customers? What's the businessman doing? Are
Speaker 1: they buying that next piece of capital equipment? Are they
Speaker 1: holding back because of the trade tension? Uh? So, I
Speaker 1: think we get a well informed view of what's likely
Speaker 1: to come up in the economy. If there's a recession
Speaker 1: somewhere out on the horizon, where would you see it first?
Speaker 1: Is it in spending patterns? Is it in payment patterns? Where?
Speaker 1: Where does the what line of business is most sensitive? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: I you know, I think the thing that you really
Speaker 1: want to keep your eye on is credit deterioration. So
Speaker 1: in the consumer side, are you seeing migrations into delinquency
Speaker 1: buckets that people are starting to stretch and have difficulty
Speaker 1: keeping up with obligations. Same thing on the corporate side
Speaker 1: of their particular segments of the economy that are starting
Speaker 1: to dress a little bit. And so to me, that's
Speaker 1: a key early warning sign. Are you seeing any of
Speaker 1: that today, We're not. So. There was a Wall Street
Speaker 1: Journal article about middle class consumers moving towards a seven
Speaker 1: year versus the old five year UH loan for automobiles,
Speaker 1: and that could be a sign of of something I don't.
Speaker 1: I think people maybe you're holding their cars longer. That's
Speaker 1: a little more affordable to stretch the payment out over
Speaker 1: a longer time. So and these cars now less pretty much,
Speaker 1: they do, they do, so you're not seeing a lot
Speaker 1: of people have been nervous about I s M and
Speaker 1: I've been nervous about residential sales. And you know, the
Speaker 1: recession easts have been forecasting a recession next year for
Speaker 1: the past five years. They you know, eventually they'll be right.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't mean we don't. We don't see it. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I I'd say, uh, there's some recent data
Speaker 1: that UH manufacturing sector is a little soft. But you
Speaker 1: have to remember in the context of the US economy,
Speaker 1: economy's power s by consumers, and consumers are in great times.
Speaker 1: Unemployments low, people can find jobs, real wage growth, So
Speaker 1: you've got UH wages growing at three point two, inflations
Speaker 1: down at one and a half. So people are having
Speaker 1: expanding uh net pay over inflation, which is great. So
Speaker 1: that I think the consumer is watching some of the
Speaker 1: current events. They're watching the trade and they're watching the
Speaker 1: impeachment proceedings, but I think they're almost inured to to that.
Speaker 1: It's been around for a long time and it hasn't
Speaker 1: really caused anything, and so people are aware of it,
Speaker 1: but it's not holding folks back. Where it is holding
Speaker 1: people back a little bit is the kind of middle
Speaker 1: market companies sitting there saying, how is the trade tension
Speaker 1: and the tariffs going to impact me? And it's going
Speaker 1: to impect impact different sectors differently. Again, the service economy
Speaker 1: is not that impacted by it, but the manufacturing sector is.
Speaker 1: And fortunately for us, the service sector dominates our to
Speaker 1: me so, but you guys have have offices in the Midwest.
Speaker 1: You're seeing stresses starting to perform on at least on
Speaker 1: a small basis. I think. I think a lot of
Speaker 1: companies are thinking about their supply chains and how to
Speaker 1: adjust their supply chains to try to minimize the impact
Speaker 1: from the tariffs. And you know what it forces everybody
Speaker 1: to do, including the banks, is how do you get
Speaker 1: more efficient if you're going to have these costs that
Speaker 1: come in from external from uh some of the administration policies.
Speaker 1: Then how do we protect our growth and our earnings, etcetera.
Speaker 1: And so deploying artificial intelligence, deploying robotics, finding ways to
Speaker 1: keep streamlining how business gets done becomes an imperative. When
Speaker 1: we think of traditional banks, we tend to think of
Speaker 1: the yield curve as being a determiner of their profitability.
Speaker 1: When the yield curve is steep, hey, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of spread to be captured, and they make money. When
Speaker 1: it's flat or as we've seen the past quarter, inverted,
Speaker 1: very challenging for those banks. How does that affect a
Speaker 1: middle market bank like yourselves. Yeah, well, it's uh, certainly
Speaker 1: move something that's been a tailwind for the last two years.
Speaker 1: Its rates were going up. Most banks are what's referred
Speaker 1: to as assets sensitive, so their loans are repricing faster
Speaker 1: than deposits and spreads are widening. When you have the
Speaker 1: flip and rates start to move down, then your loans
Speaker 1: are repricing downward faster than you can reprice your deposits.
Speaker 1: So it puts a little pressure on your net interest margin. Uh. Certainly,
Speaker 1: you try to hedge that to some extent, but you
Speaker 1: are going to have an impact, uh, and NIM will
Speaker 1: be contracting somewhat. How do you combat that? I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier the expenses focused on expenses, we had launched a
Speaker 1: very big transformational cost program. We kind of saw the
Speaker 1: the tea leaves about the FED going to either pause
Speaker 1: or maybe start to cut rates, and so we got
Speaker 1: on this back in December and we launched a big
Speaker 1: program in July. We're also over the time, we've been
Speaker 1: investing in our fee based businesses and we've done a
Speaker 1: couple of very smart fee based acquisitions. What are those
Speaker 1: fee based businesses? Well, in the commercial side, we we've
Speaker 1: purchased two M and A boutiques to broaden out what
Speaker 1: we can do for our customers, and there's still been
Speaker 1: a good flow of M and A opportunities occurring in
Speaker 1: the middle market. We bought a mortgage business, which timing
Speaker 1: was great on that because as rates go down, as
Speaker 1: the FEDS cutting rates, it maybe crimps your NIM a
Speaker 1: little bit. But NIM standing for that interest margin, the
Speaker 1: spread that you're making on your balance sheet. But there's
Speaker 1: a refi boom like we haven't seen in years, taking
Speaker 1: places have you re financial mortgage. I literally was there
Speaker 1: Friday doing the paperwork and the numbers are just insane.
Speaker 1: So so to eight on a ten one mortgage and
Speaker 1: I'll have my mortgage paid off in ten years. I
Speaker 1: don't ever have I know, I can't recall having heard
Speaker 1: of rates that low. I I want to say, a
Speaker 1: thirty year fixed was three five or three three and
Speaker 1: a half. Yeah, these are just these are These are
Speaker 1: great opportunities for consumers to put more money in their
Speaker 1: pocket and lock in lower carrying costs on their debt,
Speaker 1: and so we make fees when that happens. So fortunately
Speaker 1: this quarter we're going to have a really strong third
Speaker 1: quarter UH on the feet side, which will offset any
Speaker 1: of the leakage that we see on the balance sheet
Speaker 1: income side. UM. And then the last acquisition that we
Speaker 1: did was we bought a high end wealth advisor because
Speaker 1: what we found is in the corporate side, the business
Speaker 1: owner the fourth generation UH family that is very wealthy
Speaker 1: and occasionally takes out large dividends from their company and
Speaker 1: puts that back on the company. We weren't getting the
Speaker 1: swings at the bat to manage those assets or to
Speaker 1: do the estate planning for the company, So the folks
Speaker 1: out of US as their bank, but they would take
Speaker 1: that business elsewhere, and so we said, look, we should
Speaker 1: be doing that for those customers. We went out and
Speaker 1: bought a company called Clarfeld Asset Management, which is a
Speaker 1: highly respected wealth advisor and based in Terrytown, New York.
Speaker 1: And so we're now able to offer those services. So, uh,
Speaker 1: really not trying to do anything too big, but just
Speaker 1: hitting the sweet spots with kind of rifle shot acquisition
Speaker 1: program which has really been positive. So it sounds like
Speaker 1: your business lines are pretty diversified, yes, so that that
Speaker 1: that's a good thing, is um? So you you mentioned
Speaker 1: the FED pausing and starting to reverse itself. Obviously mortgages
Speaker 1: rates make it a big difference. How how did Quewie
Speaker 1: affect the rest of your business and and how does
Speaker 1: all the noise which seems to have faded along with
Speaker 1: the summer about the President and the FED doing battle,
Speaker 1: how does that impact what you guys do? Well? Um,
Speaker 1: Obviously the actions the Fed takes has a direct influence
Speaker 1: on the economy and on the money supply and the
Speaker 1: cost of funding, and so it's going to impact banks
Speaker 1: in a material way. Uh. Quantitative easing I think was
Speaker 1: a stimulative measure which basically the FED was building up
Speaker 1: their balance sheets, so taking on securities and buying those
Speaker 1: with cash and putting cash back into the system. So
Speaker 1: it helped promote liquidity and deposit growth and promote lending.
Speaker 1: Rates came down as they were buying those, uh, the
Speaker 1: long end securities. UH. So you know, we just have
Speaker 1: to be in tune for where the FED is going. Uh.
Speaker 1: And when we do our forecasting, we do our business planning,
Speaker 1: we run a bunch of different scenarios. Is that you
Speaker 1: know what happens. If this is happening in the economy,
Speaker 1: then what is the FED likely to do? Uh? But uh,
Speaker 1: in any case, we we just need to be flexible
Speaker 1: and adapt to the circumstances that we see. So I
Speaker 1: mentioned diversification, and you mentioned are in the southeast, Northeast,
Speaker 1: and midwest, so Boston, Philly, Pittsburgh, Providence, Detroit. Um any
Speaker 1: thoughts about expanding elsewhere are you eventually gonna Well, there's
Speaker 1: a couple of things. So on the on the corporate side, Uh,
Speaker 1: as we moved to the mid corporate space, which are
Speaker 1: slightly bigger companies five undred three billion, we need to
Speaker 1: be national in those industry verticals, and so we've planted
Speaker 1: a flag down in Atlanta, so we have about twenty
Speaker 1: five folks down there at this point. Brought a guy
Speaker 1: out of sun Trust and he's built a nice team
Speaker 1: down there. We've expanded now into Texas, which is another
Speaker 1: big state economy. We always had an energy practice in Houston,
Speaker 1: but we put some more commercial bankers in Dallas and
Speaker 1: in Houston. We just hired a fellow to UH pull
Speaker 1: together our team out in California, So he's going to
Speaker 1: be based in l A. And so UH, you know,
Speaker 1: we'll be on from a corporate bank standpoint more of
Speaker 1: a national player. And I think you're seeing that as
Speaker 1: a trend for all of the super regional banks. On
Speaker 1: the conser sumer side, we've attacked that our consumer lending
Speaker 1: operations are national, but UH in really direct interaction with
Speaker 1: consumers around deposits. We were the first super regional bank
Speaker 1: last year to launch a national digital bank called Citizens
Speaker 1: Access Online online only focused on savings products. After a year,
Speaker 1: we now have five and a half billion of deposits
Speaker 1: UH and so it's been highly successful. And so what
Speaker 1: we're thinking about now is we've gotten good at that.
Speaker 1: If you say that's a deposit mining operation, we're abul
Speaker 1: tract deposits. But what else can we do for those customers?
Speaker 1: And what else can we do for many of the
Speaker 1: customers we've now assembled through our lending products who might
Speaker 1: be thin relationship customers. They may know us like you
Speaker 1: may know us because your Apple loan is with us.
Speaker 1: But could I come to you very digitally and offer
Speaker 1: some things in a bundle to say, hey, that mortgage
Speaker 1: refinancing do it with us? Or uh, other needs that
Speaker 1: you might have, how to how to manage your your
Speaker 1: wealth portfolio. We have digital tools that would allow you
Speaker 1: to do that and be pretty true to how you
Speaker 1: do it. So uh, that's kind of the next phase
Speaker 1: for us is we probably don't want to have branches
Speaker 1: outside of our traditional footprint, but we can I think
Speaker 1: attack the national market digitally. What you're seeing that's very interesting.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of experimentation going on. So the megabanks
Speaker 1: like JP, Morgan and ba A are saying we're going
Speaker 1: into all these new cities. They're actually not increasing their
Speaker 1: branch count, their thinning branches where they're thick and they're
Speaker 1: putting them if Chase has a big customer base around
Speaker 1: their Sapphire card in a city. Okay, we should have
Speaker 1: branches there too, so we can do more with those customers.
Speaker 1: You've seen some super regional competitors like PNC. They now
Speaker 1: have a digital bank up and running, and they're putting
Speaker 1: thin offices. They've got three in Kansas City, they're putting
Speaker 1: ten or twelve in Dallas, and so everybody's attacking this
Speaker 1: a little differently. We want to get our brand out there.
Speaker 1: We want to be more national in scope. Do we
Speaker 1: need the branches or do we not need the branches.
Speaker 1: That's one of the key questions that will kind of
Speaker 1: in the peatree dish right now, we'll see how it
Speaker 1: plays out. You mentioned super regionals. We seem to go
Speaker 1: through these cycles where suddenly the majors are acquiring super
Speaker 1: regionals left and right, and then we enter a lull
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. What do you see? I know,
Speaker 1: I obviously can ask you about your bank, but in general,
Speaker 1: looking at the industry, what do you see for the
Speaker 1: m and a um landscape for the mega banks and
Speaker 1: the superregionals. Are we done with rolling up for now
Speaker 1: or how does that change? I think I think the
Speaker 1: mega banks, most of them are at the deposit cap,
Speaker 1: the national deposit cap, so they're really not players that
Speaker 1: can't play. You did see in the superregional space murder
Speaker 1: of equal between bb and T and sun Trust, which
Speaker 1: I think was fairly unique. It created a Southeast champion
Speaker 1: uh and I don't think the other superregionals feel compelled
Speaker 1: to act in the wake of that. I think right
Speaker 1: now there's so much change taking place in kind of
Speaker 1: moving your technology ecosystem to the future, that a merger
Speaker 1: could be a distraction. So if we can be flexible
Speaker 1: and nimble and good and make the right decisions, I
Speaker 1: think we can still compete effectively at our size. So
Speaker 1: I'm not sure you'll see much more in the super
Speaker 1: regional space this year. But I think the smaller banks,
Speaker 1: who really have to contend with all of the cost
Speaker 1: of that new technology and some of the costs of regulation,
Speaker 1: even though the regulators are trying to give them cut
Speaker 1: them a little slack. I think there's an impetus to
Speaker 1: see the smaller end of the market continue to consolidate.
Speaker 1: We had an issue post crisis, or at least compared
Speaker 1: to pre crisis, a lot more mega banks a lot
Speaker 1: less competition, more of the national assets held by fewer banks.
Speaker 1: Is that an attempt to sort of resolve that issue?
Speaker 1: Or or am I reaching too much here? Yeah? I
Speaker 1: think you're reaching a bit. I think if you just
Speaker 1: look at the trend. Twenty years ago, there were fourteen
Speaker 1: hous and depository institutions in the US. Five years ago
Speaker 1: it was seven. Today it's like five, and so you're
Speaker 1: just seeing that inevitable consolidation because we still have, I think,
Speaker 1: much more fractured banking landscape than any other country. We
Speaker 1: have been speaking with Bruce van Son. He is CEO
Speaker 1: of Citizens Financial Group. If you enjoyed this conversation, we'll
Speaker 1: be sure and come back for the podcast extras, where
Speaker 1: we keep the tape rolling and continue discussing all things
Speaker 1: banking related. You can find that wherever your finer podcasts
Speaker 1: are sold iTunes, Google, Stitcher, Spotify. We love your comments,
Speaker 1: feedback in suggestions right to us at m IB podcast
Speaker 1: at Bloomberg dot net. Give us a review on Apple iTunes.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out my weekly column on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: dot com. Sign up for my daily reads at Ridholts
Speaker 1: dot com. I'm Barry Ridholts you're listening to Masters in
Speaker 1: Business on Bloomberg Radio. Welcome to the podcast. Bruce, Thank
Speaker 1: you so much for doing this. I um, it's always
Speaker 1: funny when I see different names. I have this pet
Speaker 1: theory that there are thousands and thousands and thousands of
Speaker 1: people working who have a giant impact on everybody's day
Speaker 1: to day life, and nobody knows who they are. Everybody
Speaker 1: knows who Steve Jobs was not, everybody knows who Bruce
Speaker 1: van so On is. And yet you're impacting what what
Speaker 1: people do. So I was I was looking forward to this.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of questions I did not get
Speaker 1: to that. I'm going to try and run through now
Speaker 1: and then we'll we'll do our favorite questions and we'll
Speaker 1: get you over to TV on time. UM. Oh, so
Speaker 1: you guys went public in I've, I've. We have all
Speaker 1: heard lots of folks complain about the I P O
Speaker 1: process and how difficult it is being a public company.
Speaker 1: How does that square up with your experiences running a
Speaker 1: private company and then taking it public. Yeah, so you know,
Speaker 1: I actually, um, I think it's been very positive for citizens.
Speaker 1: Part of it is where we came from. Uh, we
Speaker 1: had to turn around the bank and so having UH
Speaker 1: an interested investor community and twenty two cell side analysts
Speaker 1: focused on us and prodding on our long term strategy
Speaker 1: and putting estimates as to how fast we could turn
Speaker 1: around the bank. UH. It's certainly raised the level of
Speaker 1: accountability and I think our ability to execute improved. UM.
Speaker 1: You know, when I when I think about the trade offs,
Speaker 1: people say, well, private companies can can quote unquote go
Speaker 1: long they can think long term and make the investments
Speaker 1: for the long term, and they're not kind of hemmed
Speaker 1: in by the need to deliver quarterly results. UM. I
Speaker 1: actually think that if you communicate effectively what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do for the long term, and you say I'm
Speaker 1: gonna need to invest some money in this and this
Speaker 1: is why I'm doing it, and this is how fast
Speaker 1: I think I'll get the payback, there are long term
Speaker 1: investors out there who who appreciate that, who want to
Speaker 1: invest with a growth story with the management team that's
Speaker 1: trying to grow the franchise and not just really focus
Speaker 1: on cost cut and the delivering for the next quarter
Speaker 1: and buying back shares. And so we've tried to balance that.
Speaker 1: We've tried to make sure that we're executing well and
Speaker 1: putting points on the board and showing a good trajectory
Speaker 1: in the short term. But we're also doing significant reinvesting
Speaker 1: UH and trying to grow the bank so that we
Speaker 1: make it stronger five years from now and ten years
Speaker 1: from now. So all the complaints about how um onerous
Speaker 1: being a public company is and the threats from activist investors,
Speaker 1: is that all overstated? Or what do you think? Look
Speaker 1: if you if you run the company well and you
Speaker 1: actually think through an activist agenda, Like what am I
Speaker 1: missing in terms of my own plans? Are there? If
Speaker 1: an activist was involved in this company, what would they do?
Speaker 1: Would they take capital away from these lending portfolios and
Speaker 1: move it to this lending portfolio? Actually, you can proactively
Speaker 1: anticipate where they would where they would make suggestions, and
Speaker 1: just get ahead of it. And and you know, it's
Speaker 1: helpful to to kind of keep that mindset. It insulates
Speaker 1: you from attack if you're beating them to the punch. Yeah. Interesting,
Speaker 1: I mentioned you're on the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston
Speaker 1: as well as the board of directors at Moody's. There
Speaker 1: were two other things I want to mention because I
Speaker 1: think they're both interesting. You're a board member for the
Speaker 1: Bank Policy Institute. What does the bank policies to do?
Speaker 1: What are you? What is your involvement? Uh, tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about that institution. So the Bank Policy
Speaker 1: Institute is a relatively new creation with a long history
Speaker 1: and legacy organization before it, which was originally the Banker's
Speaker 1: Round Table, which became the Financial Services Round Table. I think, Uh,
Speaker 1: what's the correlation between this and the fincial. So now
Speaker 1: bp I has effectively succeeded the Financial Services Round Table,
Speaker 1: And I think there was a desire at one point
Speaker 1: to put different industry groups in financial institutions under one roof.
Speaker 1: So when it was the Banker's Roundtable, it was just bankers.
Speaker 1: Then it was financial services and so asset managers and
Speaker 1: insurers all got together and we would have meetings and interact,
Speaker 1: you know, on policy and talk to folks down on
Speaker 1: the hill. A lot of the meetings would be in Washington.
Speaker 1: But you know, over time, I think the agendas of
Speaker 1: the different subsectors were different. So under Brian moynihan's leadership,
Speaker 1: who runs b of A, was determined that the banks
Speaker 1: should split off and keep a kind of larger bank
Speaker 1: profile minimums asset size twenty five billion would throw into
Speaker 1: this Bank Policy Institute H and effectively work on policy
Speaker 1: matters and things that impact the economy and have an
Speaker 1: ability to you know, effectively operate like a think tank,
Speaker 1: put out papers and monitor what the FETE is doing,
Speaker 1: and respond to request for proposals from the regulatory agencies,
Speaker 1: and have an ongoing dialogue with members of Congress. So
Speaker 1: they were informed on financial issues that impact the real economy.
Speaker 1: Quite interesting. And then you are also a board member
Speaker 1: of the Partnership for Rhode Island and Jobs from Massachusetts.
Speaker 1: What are these two groups do well? Those are efforts
Speaker 1: to stimulate the local economy and get business people to
Speaker 1: work together to help the governors of those uh states. UH,
Speaker 1: you know drive pro business and and pro growth and
Speaker 1: pro jobs agendas. UH. And so the one that uh
Speaker 1: uh we've had some really good traction, in particular with
Speaker 1: Partnership for Rhode Island, where we've focused on education UH
Speaker 1: and and uh also business attraction and transportation, which are
Speaker 1: important to improving the Rhode Island economy. UH. One thing
Speaker 1: we did recently is we funded the Johns Hopkins Review
Speaker 1: of the Providence school system, which I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've seen that. It caught a lot of national press,
Speaker 1: but basically was pretty damning of the state of the
Speaker 1: school system. And uh, now can you say that in
Speaker 1: pretty much any school system, but some are better. This
Speaker 1: was this was really kind of pretty low down the
Speaker 1: totem pole and there needs to be changed. And so
Speaker 1: the state's going to take over the administration of that
Speaker 1: school district and I think make the changes that will
Speaker 1: make sure those kids in that community really have a
Speaker 1: chance to prosper when they come of age and are
Speaker 1: entering the job market. So, uh, those things feel good. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, working in collaboration with governors and with the
Speaker 1: government to to you know, bring business, uh influence and
Speaker 1: money behind things that are going to improve local economies.
Speaker 1: One of the things I've noticed with some of the
Speaker 1: business development groups has been a sort of and we
Speaker 1: saw a little bit of this with the Amazon headquarter
Speaker 1: bake off, but we've seen this sort of tendency to
Speaker 1: give the store away in order to attract specific companies
Speaker 1: as opposed to just creating an environment that is helpful
Speaker 1: and easy to operate in for businesses. What do you
Speaker 1: think of those It's almost like a race to the bottom.
Speaker 1: Ester a big proponent of that. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we had an opportunity. Um. A couple of years ago,
Speaker 1: we had a fork in the road. We had a
Speaker 1: very large least facility in the Greater Providence area and
Speaker 1: a couple other smaller leases. That meant people were uh
Speaker 1: you know, kind of going to roll off their current
Speaker 1: occupancy and we can either renew or do something different.
Speaker 1: We decided to break ground and build our own campus
Speaker 1: in a town called Johnston, Rhode Island, which is a
Speaker 1: little west of Providence. We've got people there, four square
Speaker 1: feet uh beautiful campus with sports fields that we share
Speaker 1: with the local community, walking trails through the woods. Uh.
Speaker 1: And we didn't take any funding. We didn't try to
Speaker 1: hold up Rhode Island and say I want you to
Speaker 1: compete against Massachusetts. We just said, this is where we
Speaker 1: want to be, this is where our history has had us,
Speaker 1: and we have a great uh colleague base here. Uh.
Speaker 1: And so you know that I think the government was
Speaker 1: helpful in getting things we needed, like an exit ramp
Speaker 1: off of the highway into our campus, for example. So
Speaker 1: the work isn't that what the state or the local
Speaker 1: city is supposed to be doing as opposed to tax
Speaker 1: give away right, so that we we split the cost
Speaker 1: with the state, so we paid half and they paid
Speaker 1: half for that exit ramp for example. And you know
Speaker 1: some of the some of the locals are alreadis put
Speaker 1: sewer lines in and on an expedited basis so we
Speaker 1: could get the campus up and running. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was it was the right thing to do,
Speaker 1: and we didn't have our hand out. I have some
Speaker 1: NFL team owners I'd like to introduce you to. Maybe
Speaker 1: you convince them to stop being socialists and actually embrace capitalism.
Speaker 1: You own a football team, build your own damn stadium.
Speaker 1: I know that doesn't win me any friends, but it
Speaker 1: just seems like a reasonable thing to do. Um. I
Speaker 1: just was reading, uh the Cleveland Cavaliers. Their stadium needs
Speaker 1: an upgrade, and they're asking the taxpayers to pay a
Speaker 1: couple hundred million dollars. You're a billionaire, fix your own stadium.
Speaker 1: Leave us out of it it. Uh. I can't. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to talk about anything in Boston sports
Speaker 1: as a New Yorker. I I just don't even want
Speaker 1: to go there. Um. Let's see if there's any other
Speaker 1: questions I missed that I wanted to get to. We
Speaker 1: talked about that. We talked about that, all right, So
Speaker 1: let's jump to our favorite questions that we ask our guests.
Speaker 1: These are the ten questions that are supposed to be
Speaker 1: revealing of who you are and how you got that way.
Speaker 1: Tell us the first car you ever own, year making
Speaker 1: model uh Ford Mustang to four. I was still a
Speaker 1: year away from my license, but I had worked summer
Speaker 1: jobs and my dad said, I'll pay two thousand dollars
Speaker 1: to any car. You've got to come up with a difference.
Speaker 1: We paid for that car, and so when I got
Speaker 1: my license, I was driving a brand new car. So wait,
Speaker 1: you bought that car before you actually had it was
Speaker 1: the model year was letting out or something, so my
Speaker 1: father thought he could get a deal on it. So
Speaker 1: but I pick it up at the end of the year,
Speaker 1: had from working summer jobs, so I put up my
Speaker 1: share that that's great. Um, what's the most important thing
Speaker 1: people don't know about? Bruce Van so on? Um, I
Speaker 1: you know, one of my early jobs was as a landscaper,
Speaker 1: summer jobs to make that money for the car. Uh
Speaker 1: and I still love to garden to this day. So
Speaker 1: I take great pride in designing a nice landscape and
Speaker 1: then maintaining it. Uh. Tell us about your early mentors
Speaker 1: who helped guide your career well? Um, I I always
Speaker 1: mentioned my parents because I think they gave me a
Speaker 1: great foundation and moral compass. But uh, you know, as
Speaker 1: you as you grow up, it's your teachers and favorite
Speaker 1: sports coaches and so that all goes into making you
Speaker 1: who you are. Uh. And then I had some great
Speaker 1: people that I worked for. UM. I had a fellow
Speaker 1: at General Mills, my first job out of college, who
Speaker 1: was tall, lanky, athletic guy like me, but really smart.
Speaker 1: Had worked at General Motors, learned a lot from him.
Speaker 1: He was very decisive, worked for Bruce Wasserstein, one of
Speaker 1: the smartest shows on the planet. Uh. He had There
Speaker 1: were a lot of Bruce is ms that I picked
Speaker 1: up in a out of wisdom. And so I always
Speaker 1: found that if you want to you know, move ahead
Speaker 1: in a career that your you should look for great
Speaker 1: people to work for that you can learn from. So
Speaker 1: when they're interviewing you, you should also be interviewing them
Speaker 1: to make sure that these are people that really are
Speaker 1: going to have an impact on you what about bankers
Speaker 1: that influence the way you look at the business of banking?
Speaker 1: Who who affected your uh to bankers that I would
Speaker 1: call out? Tom Rennie was my boss at the bank
Speaker 1: in New York for many years, and I think Tom
Speaker 1: had a had a just great stoicism to to hand
Speaker 1: be inflappable under all kinds of scenarios. Um and uh
Speaker 1: kind of it's never it's always darkest just before the dawn,
Speaker 1: that kind of mentality, it's not as good as you
Speaker 1: think it is when it's when it's going really well,
Speaker 1: and just kind of keep that even keel. And then
Speaker 1: the second one was Stephen Hester when I worked over
Speaker 1: at RBS UM who was under a mense pressure to
Speaker 1: get RBS righted, but uh just was so unflappable under
Speaker 1: all that pressure. Um and again keeping that even keel,
Speaker 1: um and uh just super super smart, really good thoughts
Speaker 1: about how to go about that turnaround, which some of
Speaker 1: those things I've I've applied to citizens on a smaller
Speaker 1: scale obviously than URBS. What about books? Tell us about
Speaker 1: your favorite books. What do you enjoy to read? I
Speaker 1: read a wide uh range of books, read a lot
Speaker 1: of business books. Uh, I read uh you know, Tom Clancy,
Speaker 1: Harlan Coben, those kind of books. Probably the the book
Speaker 1: that's had the biggest impact me my whole life was
Speaker 1: The Power Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale. Uh So,
Speaker 1: I was a giant that really positive attitude, which I
Speaker 1: read probably when I was in my early twenties. Uh So.
Speaker 1: I totally enjoy reading. Unfortunately, I have I have so
Speaker 1: much reading to do for work in such an extensive
Speaker 1: seven have work agenda that I don't read as much
Speaker 1: as I could. But I've still probably read a dozen
Speaker 1: books a year. I would say, give give us another title,
Speaker 1: one other that you really enjoyed. I would, you know,
Speaker 1: I just I just read a very interesting book. Um,
Speaker 1: I can't I don't remember the title, but it was
Speaker 1: about an elephant trainer who basically lead these elephants in
Speaker 1: World War two and the kind of Burmese jungle, which
Speaker 1: to me was really fascinating. Let's see if I can
Speaker 1: find how Burmese elephants helped defeat Japanese in World War two.
Speaker 1: Elephant Company there is let me get let me see
Speaker 1: if I can read the exact name. That's wild by
Speaker 1: Vicky Croake. Elephant Company the inspiring story of an unlikely
Speaker 1: hero in the animals who helped save him lives in
Speaker 1: World War two. Wow, that's quite quite fascinating. Tell us
Speaker 1: about a time you failed and what you learned from
Speaker 1: the experience. But by the way, a thousand nine views,
Speaker 1: five stars, that's pretty that's pretty impressive. That was a
Speaker 1: good book. So you might want to put that one
Speaker 1: on your list. Yeah, I definitely will um tell us
Speaker 1: about a time you failed and what you learned from
Speaker 1: the experience. Uh, you know, I I'd say getting cut
Speaker 1: from a sports team was kind of a big moment
Speaker 1: for me. I was a tall sport. Did you play basketball?
Speaker 1: I played baseball, basketball, and a little bit of football
Speaker 1: for a couple of years. But I got cut from
Speaker 1: the varsity team as a sophomore in high school. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I really I was angry. You went through all
Speaker 1: the emotions that go with that. But I picked myself
Speaker 1: up and we went A bunch of us went and
Speaker 1: joined a travel basketball team and we played. You know,
Speaker 1: we had so much fun. And then we got to
Speaker 1: play the high school team in a kind of just
Speaker 1: a braggadocio game. I'll bet you were better than you
Speaker 1: and we beat the high school team when we got
Speaker 1: that's great revenge. That's a little bit of Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: didn't make He was a freshman, he got cut h
Speaker 1: and he used it as motivation as well. What do
Speaker 1: you do for fun? What are you still playing hoops
Speaker 1: or no more? Nah, It's it's a little risky at
Speaker 1: this stage. But you know I still enjoy sports, so golf, tennis, swimming. Uh.
Speaker 1: Like to go to the beach. Uh. You mentioned your
Speaker 1: sail Yeah. I was a commodore at our at our
Speaker 1: sailing club, so I love the water. Um. And you know,
Speaker 1: like good dining, going out, having a good time with
Speaker 1: the family and friends. Um, well you got plenty of
Speaker 1: choices for restaurants restaurants here. Yeah. So in the banking
Speaker 1: industry today, what are you most optimistic about and what
Speaker 1: are you most pessimistic about? Well, I'd say, um, you know,
Speaker 1: when I look at at this country, the US, that
Speaker 1: that we serve, that citizens serves, I think it's the
Speaker 1: greatest country on the planet. Um. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we have our troubles, we have our challenges, were not perfect,
Speaker 1: but over time we've continued just to I think get
Speaker 1: it right. Uh. And we're we have an innovative society.
Speaker 1: We've got the big tech companies. We're trying to improve
Speaker 1: people's lives, and so I just think about how the
Speaker 1: quality of life in the country is so much better
Speaker 1: than it was in nineteen fifty nine thousand. Just think
Speaker 1: where it's going to be going forward. So I'm optimistic
Speaker 1: about that. Um, I'd say the things that I'm disappointed
Speaker 1: in are pessimistic about, is that people don't feel good
Speaker 1: about it. So the flip side of that is, we
Speaker 1: have so much to be thankful for and so much
Speaker 1: to to count our blessings for, but everybody seems to
Speaker 1: be grumpy and angry and not step back and say, gosh,
Speaker 1: look look what we have. Uh So, anyway, I think
Speaker 1: we've lost our soul a little bit. We've lost our spirituality,
Speaker 1: which I'd love to see that rejuvenate at some point.
Speaker 1: It does seem that people are a little more divided,
Speaker 1: a little more angry. It's it's some of its social media,
Speaker 1: but some of it is just you know, this the
Speaker 1: post crisis state of affairs. People never really fully recovered
Speaker 1: their optimism after that. It took a long time after
Speaker 1: the Great Depression before that and A and a world
Speaker 1: war before people seem to resurrect that can do American spirit.
Speaker 1: Um So a millennial or I'm gonna say that again
Speaker 1: because I have to drop millennial because they're too old now.
Speaker 1: Ah So, a recent college grad comes to you and
Speaker 1: says they're interested in banking. What sort of career advice
Speaker 1: would you give that. I tell them it's a great career,
Speaker 1: and uh, you know what I love about it? I
Speaker 1: think it's a noble profession. So I tell people, Look,
Speaker 1: you get to positively impact people, individuals, uh, communities, local
Speaker 1: economies by what you do in your day job working
Speaker 1: as a banker. But then we also have a platform
Speaker 1: that you can volunteer off that platform and further that
Speaker 1: impact on local communities. And so for example, Citizens Bank,
Speaker 1: when I joined six years ago, we were volunteering about
Speaker 1: fifty ours. We really had to focus on upping that
Speaker 1: and today this year we're gonna hit about a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thou volunteer hours. We have seven people serving
Speaker 1: on local boards around our footprint. And so, uh, if
Speaker 1: you want to have a career where you can learn
Speaker 1: be challenged constantly evolving landscape that you have to contend with,
Speaker 1: but Importantly, you can positively benefit the people that you
Speaker 1: live with and the local communities and economies that you
Speaker 1: live in. Banking is a great career. So normally I
Speaker 1: don't ask follow up questions in this segment, but you
Speaker 1: just made me think of something. Not too long ago,
Speaker 1: the Business Round Table change their perspective on UM. The
Speaker 1: end goal of the corporation is maximizing shareholder profits. They
Speaker 1: now look at it as there are many different constituencs
Speaker 1: UM and that that' seems to have been a pretty
Speaker 1: large sea change. What did you think of what? It
Speaker 1: sounds like you've already adopted that. What did you think
Speaker 1: of this? Well, if we we, I think it's been
Speaker 1: a little controversial because ultimately you're working for your shareholders.
Speaker 1: You know, management is an agent for the shareholders of
Speaker 1: the bank. I think all those uh different stakeholders work together, UM.
Speaker 1: And so you're trying to deliver for customers, for communities, uh,
Speaker 1: for your colleagues, the three c's. If you're regulated, you
Speaker 1: gotta run a business the right way for the regulators.
Speaker 1: You've got to deliver for the shareholders. You want to
Speaker 1: get that flywheel working. But to me, it comes back
Speaker 1: to the shareholder. If you're running the bank well, you'll
Speaker 1: have the resources to keep investing in all the deliverables
Speaker 1: for those other stakeholders. So I'm you know, I like
Speaker 1: the concept of broadening it out and making sure that
Speaker 1: people are thinking it's not all about the bottom line.
Speaker 1: But still I think the shareholder is the one that
Speaker 1: you have to please first and foremost. They're the ones
Speaker 1: with the acts. If if you're not pleasing, you can't
Speaker 1: go pursue your own agenda and make the other stuff
Speaker 1: more important and then see the stock not performed well,
Speaker 1: in the bottom line not performed well. It should work together.
Speaker 1: And our final question, what is it that you know
Speaker 1: about the world of banking today that you wish you
Speaker 1: might have known thirty years ago? Um I. I think
Speaker 1: it's just a cumulative process where you go through life
Speaker 1: and you learn things. UM I don't. I don't have
Speaker 1: any ah ha moments. I just have gained a lot
Speaker 1: of wisdom by working in different companies. And I think
Speaker 1: you know just that that that banks have a big
Speaker 1: role to play in the economy. They have to be
Speaker 1: run well in a safe and sound fashion. They have
Speaker 1: to be focused on delivering for customers. Um and you know.
Speaker 1: I think you've you've come to that knowledge over time.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know if there's an aha thing
Speaker 1: that I said, God, I would have run my career
Speaker 1: differently if I knew it back then. I think I've just,
Speaker 1: you know, evolved with the changes in the industry, and
Speaker 1: I think I have a pretty good concept of what
Speaker 1: banking is all about at this point. Fair enough, Bruce,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for being so generous with your time.
Speaker 1: We have been speaking with Bruce van so On. He
Speaker 1: is the chairman and CEO of Citizens Financial Group. If
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Speaker 1: Karen O'Brien is my audio engineer. Michael Boyle is my
Speaker 1: produce your slash booker. Michael Batnick is my head of research.
Speaker 1: I'm Barry Retolts. You've been listening to Masters in Business
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Radio. H