For years, BMO has held a prominent role in fuelling progress for individuals, families and businesses across North America, growing to serve more than 13 million customers and providing all-encompassing services including personal, commercial, global and investment banking.
As the eighth largest bank in North America by assets, it is no surprise then, that BMO picked up four awards at the Global Retail Banking Innovation Awards 2024, hosted by The Digital Banker in Singapore. Its strides in customer service innovation also received high acclaim from judges at the event.
Product that serve customers
BMO launched PaySmart in response to growing customer demand for flexible, low-cost credit solutions amidst an increasingly competitive landscape. The initiative aimed to empower customers with an innovative tool to manage their cashflow and expenses more effectively, without compromising their credit scores. PaySmart allows credit card users to seamlessly convert purchases into manageable monthly instalments, whether at a physical point of sale, online checkout, or through online banking.
This solution not only offers the convenience of immediate conversion but also provides clear and accessible indicators, enabling customers to create and manage their instalment plans easily, offering a level of control and transparency that sets BMO apart from competitors. For this, it won the Digital Lending Product of the Year award.
Introducing this product significantly impacted BMO’s business and revenue, with a notable 200% year-over-year increase in adoption and a threefold rise in the average number of plans per customer. By offering real-time notifications and transparent tracking, PaySmart has empowered customers with better financial insights and control.
Another award-winning product by BMO – SplitShare – was launched in response to rising living expenses, which have given way to shared experiences as a blueprint for managing the cost of living. SplitShare empowers customers to navigate financial responsibilities with ease by offering a seamless, efficient way for BMO customers to split every day or special costs and get paid effortlessly.
This homegrown solution allows BMO customers to be on top of their finances without having to leave the BMO app, while also increasing customer engagement and loyalty, while also winning the Best Payments Innovation award.
BMO’s Card Controls solution received high acclaim from The Digital Banker. It is a comprehensive and highly accessible self-service platform allowing customers to resolve all their card/transaction-related requests, and providing them with a suite of tools to protect and support their banking relationship.
Turbocharging operations
The bank launched BMO Customer Feedback Assist, a Large Language Model (LLM)-powered tool, courtesy of OpenAI, BMO and Deloitte, that takes unstructured customer feedback to generate a real-time dashboard of the key feedback metrics and insights that are currently tracked. The dashboard and chat interface is unlike any of the current market offerings, being truly dynamic.
This solution saves employees up to 90% of the time otherwise spent manually reviewing and documenting feedback. Additionally, it allows the bank to replace multiple vendor solutions, saving both time and resources. For building out a cohesive, one-stop solution, BMO received the Best Gen–AI Retail Operations Initiative award.
BMO established the Agile Center of Excellence (COE) with the mandate to improve agile product development practices and business agility. The program has been a tremendous success for the bank by increasing the pace and quality of delivery for BMO’s digital teams and a leader in industry benchmarks.
The COE has focused on serving the training needed to develop talent, especially in certain roles such as the product owner and scrum master roles. In addition to providing pathways for these two roles, the COE has provided self-serve content and learning available to all employees regardless of their reporting line of business covering all aspects of Agile@BMO, which is the official Agile Operating Model at BMO. For this, it received the Outstanding Staff Training, Learning & Development Program award.
