Interview: Rob Curley, South Jersey Market President, TD Bank

Evolution

Leveraging phone and video consultations has changed the customer dynamic in banking

Rob Curley

South Jersey Market President – TD Bank

How do you think the in-person aspect of banking will change as a result of the pandemic? A year ago, I never would have expected that we could manage a business banking relationship without inperson meetings. However, during the heart of the pandemic, we leveraged phone and video consultations as our main two avenues of customer communication. More recently, we implemented in-person meetings per customer request, while still ensuring we adhere to all COVID-19 safety protocols. Moving forward, I expect business customers to visit us less in-person for simple matters and more for consultation. There was a period when people thought face-to-face was the only way to do things but I think the industry has realized that video conferencing can be very efficient and is often preferred by our customers for simpler transactions.

How does TD Bank support the small businesses? South Jersey is really a mom-and-pop business community. We don’t have a lot of major cities but the bank has significant market share here. The U.S. Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) program allowed us to solidify a lot of those relationships and contribute to the survival of the community. Our team worked long hours to help as many eligible borrowers as possible secure a PPP loan. Additionally, pre-pandemic many small businesses did not embrace the technology banks offer, such as fraud protection tools and treasury management platforms. We have had many discussions with our small business customers on the importance of digitization and many now understand the need to embrace these technologies in a remote environment and see the true benefit of the treasury management solutions we offer.

How is TD Bank helping to develop financial literacy? Financial literacy is something TD Bank always keeps top of mind. We offer financial literacy resources in-person via seminars as well as digitally, which was very helpful during the pandemic. For children in grades K-12, we offer our WOW! Zone program with TD Bank WOW! Zone Financial Education Resources, designed to help K–12 educators and parents teach children and teens about money in an easy, simple way to help prepare them for a strong financial future. For adults, we modified our inperson financial education seminars on credit awareness, homebuying and more to be offered virtually, along with the classes we offered to community organizations, chambers, small businesses and schools. We’ve also expanded our digital financial education options to offer nearly 40 online lessons on our website in addition to Finance 101, which includes a growing collection of tools, tips and financial education articles.