Virtual reality and indoor ‘tree houses’: Truist unveils banking tech center in uptown
Truist Bank is looking to fuse tech and finance with a new 100,000-square-foot banking Innovation and Technology Center that debuted Tuesday at its headquarters in uptown Charlotte.
The two-football-field sized facility will serve as a research lab and collaboration hub for engineers, designers and customers to “build a better banking experience,” Truist said in a news release Tuesday.
It includes customer meeting rooms, indoor “tree houses” and virtual reality labs to help bankers design and prototype digital products.
The center will help “propel Truist into the future” of digital banking, Chief Information Officer Scott Case said. The company declined to disclose the cost of the project.
The space on the building’s 14th and 15th floors previously was an open trading floor filled with cubicles, and was redesigned to include dozens of individual, group and flexible work spaces.
The features include:
▪ A makerspace to design and test products
▪ “Tree Houses,” creative spaces looking out over the main floor of the center that can be used to meet or showcase prototypes
▪ An 18-person call center for engineers and designers to get feedback from customers
▪ A common area called “The Park,” complete with greenery, swings and natural light
▪ A lab where the focus is on using virtual and augmented reality technology to “create the future of banking.”
Programs for innovators
Truist has been planning for the center for over a year and originally planned to open it in late 2021.
In addition to the new center, Truist is also launching an “Innovators in Residence” program. The program will bring in leaders from tech firms and startups to “explore new and emerging technologies” that could help solve industry challenges, the bank said in its release.
Verizon, Amazon Web Services and cloud computing company Unqork are all founding partners of that program.
Truist ranks low in digital banking
Truist Bank has some catching up to do with its competitors when it comes to digital banking.
Consumer research firm J.D. Power ranked the bank last among its peers this month for customer satisfaction with its mobile app and overall online experience, the Winston-Salem Journal reported.
Other banks with a Charlotte presence, like Wells Fargo and Bank of America, ranked among the best in the industry for their mobile app and online banking, respectively.
Still, most Truist customers are still interacting with the bank online, Truist has said — 87% of customer interactions at the bank are digital, according to its website.
Improving digital options for customers has been a key focus for Truist since SunTrust and BB&T merged to form the bank in 2019. The bank launched a new mobile banking app and website late last year as part of the merger.
Truist has been working to build out its digital capabilities since the two banks merged. The new center is a “strong investment” in that goal, said Ken Meyer, divisional chief information officer. “It’s a physical manifestation of everything we’ve been saying from day one.”
Truist employs over 50,000 workers. The bank has about 2,800 employees in the greater Charlotte area.
This story was originally published June 21, 2022 at 2:25 PM.
