Fifth_Third_Bank

1. DETAILED BACKGROUND of 5/3rd BANK Fifth Third Bank is one of the leading financial institutions in the United States with $ 117 billion in assets. The bank is operating 1,316 full –service banking centers, functioning 2,300 ATMs throughout its geographical presence, and employing more than 21,000 employees. Fifth Third Bank is operating in 12 States which are Ohio, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and West Virginia. It is headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio. Fifth Third Bank is among the top 20 largest bank holding companies in the country. Also, it holds the leading market share of the Midwest market. During the past five years, Fifth Third bank has been building a strong presence in the Southeastern Region with higher growth markets. Thus, Fifth Third Bank has implemented a comprehensive business continuity, back-up, recovery, and archiving solutions in order to be able to protect the financial interests of their customers as well as providing time-sensitive service. Through history from the 1800s to present, mergers and acquisitions of other banks has been the growth strategy of Fifth Third Bank. Fifth Third Bank started in June 17, 1858 as the Bank of Ohio Valley in Cincinnati. The bank of Ohio Valley was then acquired by Third National Bank in April 29, 1871. In September 28, 1882, the Queen city National Bank was organized only to be renamed again in 1888 as the Fifth National Bank. Later on June 1, 1908, The Third National Bank merged with Fifth National Bank to form the Fifth Third National Bank of Cincinnati. Then in February 23, 1927, The Fifth Third National Bank and The Union Trust Company, which was organized in 1890, were consolidated to have The Fifth Third Union Trust Company. In March 24, 1969, the bank was renamed as the Fifth Third Bank. The Fifth Third Bancorp was incorporated in October 7, 1974. In July 9, 1999, Vanguard Financial Corporation, which was a commercial mortgage banking company, was acquired and merged with Fifth Third Bank to create Fifth Third Real Estate Markets Company. Fifth Third Bank operates five different business lines which are Branch Banking, Consumer Lending, Commercial, and Investment Advisors. The chart illustrates twelve months revenue from its business lines which equals $ 6.2 billion. Fifth Third Bank is operating 15 affiliates in the twelve states which are Greater Cincinnati, Central Ohio, Northwestern Ohio, Northeastern Ohio, Western Michigan, Eastern Michigan, Kentucky, Tennessee, Central Indiana, Southern Indiana, Chicago, South Florida, Central Florida, Tampa Bay, and North Carolina. The affiliates operate as a collection of decentralized operations. Each affiliate is located in major metropolitan markets with its own small bank culture and local decision making power, local board of directors to be able to provide better guidance since those boards are part of the community in which the affiliate operates, empowered local president who’s capable of making decision better suites its market, and finally local leaders. Fifth Third corporate management retains the authority for decision making in the areas of capital planning, long-term strategic planning, marketing, financial management, investment and asset/liability management, and technology. Since its beginning, superior customer service has been its focus which was translated in the bank’s mission statement “Fifth Third Bank - a growth company that relentlessly meets today's needs while working hard to deliver a better tomorrow for our customers, our employees and our shareholders.”. This affiliation model has proved its ability to support the bank’s objectives in differentiating itself in the market place, becoming more sensitive towards customer responsiveness, attracting and retaining talents, creating best practices, and consolidating back office functions. Fifth Third Bank handles the transaction processing for more than 180,000 retail locations and financial institutions worldwide such as The Kroger Co., Abercrombie & Fitch, Nordstrom, Inc., and The Finish Line. Fifth Third Bank has been rewarded with several respectful ranks for its reputation in customer service and innovation. For example, Fifth Third bank has ranked 326 on Fortune's 2011 Fortune 500 listing and was named among the top 10 in the Superregional Banks category of Fortune's 2011 most Admired Companies listing. The ranking is based on strength in innovation, people management, use of corporate assets, social responsibility, quality of management, financial soundness, long-term investment, quality of products/services and global competitiveness. Moreover, Fifth Third Bancorp was named the seventh strongest bank in the world by Bloomberg Markets magazine. In September 14, 2010, Fifth Third ranked as number 99 on the 2010 InformationWeek 500 list of Top Technology Innovators in America. The InformationWeek identifies those who possess the power of innovation in Information Technology rather than identifying the biggest spenders in Information Technology. 1.1. BUSINESS TO CONSUMER SYSTEM. The focus of this business research project is on the business to consumer system of the Fifth Third Bank, which Online and Mobile banking represent. 1.1.A Online Banking. Online Banking or what is known as Internet Banking is the facility, which is provided by banking and financial institutions, enabling customers to execute bank related transactions through the internet. The first online banking service was introduced in 1995. The Business to Consumer system is comprised of many applications that connect the 1,316 bank centers, 2,300 ATMs, 32,000 PCs and laptops to all of Fifth Third Bank’s servers, while also being available to the customers. The Online Banking was rolled out in Fifth Third Bank in the second half of 2002. Fifth Third Bank offers free Personal Internet Banking and Online Bill Payment system to its customers. It offers to its customers the ability to manage their accounts and pay bills 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This online banking feature provides customers but not limited to the following services: • View account information for checking, savings, certificate of deposit, Fifth Third Platinum Capital Accounts, trust, brokerage, credit card, and loan accounts. • Transfer funds between linked Fifth Third Bank accounts and certain non-Fifth Third Bank accounts. Some services may have limits on the numbers of transactions you can complete in a specified period. • Schedule payments to non-Fifth Third Bank Payees in the United States. • Modify/Cancel payments, subject to the rules set forth in this Agreement. • Report account problems, request information, or order changes to account information or services via a secured communication channel. • Set up for email or mobile alerts. • Request to receive documents and notifications, such as your periodic statements online. Internet banking has become a competitive necessity for Fifth Third Bank. As many as 25% of retail customers switch banks each year, creating intense competition between banks to attract and retain customers. Virtually all medium to large sized banks have implemented some form of Internet banking. Thus, having basic online banking platform as a product offering for Fifth Third Bank customers is no longer differentiating Fifth Third Bank from their competitors. Customer retention business drivers have changed from basic online banking platform to a more function and feature rich Internet banking platform that allows customers to effectively perform online banking transactions, efficiently manage all their bank accounts in one place (account aggregation), and easily make electronic bill payments. In 2003, Fifth Third Bank has implemented Financial Fusion Consumer Banking Solution, which is for banking and bill payment, alerts and bill payment and transfer warehouse. This Consumer Banking Solution is a comprehensive web-based account and payment management system that offers a fully integrated, multi-channel delivery solution for retail banking. Since merger and acquisition are the growth strategies used by Fifth Third Bank, it is highly important for them to implement solutions that can help them with their customer acquisition and retention. The bank has integrated this solution with both its Integrated Voice Response (IVR) and Customer Service Representative (CSR) channels to create a single platform for payments. "Financial Fusion provides Fifth Third with innovative banking products that we have subsequently integrated across multiple channels and systems," said Rahul Bawa, VP of eBusiness, Fifth Third Bancorp. Furthermore, Fifth Third Bank has collaborated in 2009 with Tavant Technologies to launch a consumer lending online channel. This online service allows the customers to apply for a loan through the internet. The application is utilized with integrated calculator and valuation tool to help respond to customers in seconds whether they are qualified for loan or not. Additionally, the application is capable of providing the customer with home equity and vehicle financing rates/approval rates, and home value assessment using value estimator. In case the customer needs assistance, live chat with a representative from the bank can be established via the internet. 1.1.B Mobile Banking. Mobile Banking is the facility of performing some banking transactions through a mobile device. Due to the rapidly changing and competitive market, Fifth Third Bank mobile application was introduced to the market in 2009 for free. This application allows the customers to manage their accounts, check their balances, transfer money, pay bills, find ATMs or banking center, view alerts, and process other banking transactions 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Although mobile banking appears to be appealing to younger generations, it is strongly believed that it is targeting multiple demographic customers. However, the delivery of a mobile banking service to a consumer involves the participation of four primary players; A Bank, Mobile Network Operator (MNO), a Mobile Banking Technology Vendor, and the consumer. Therefore, Fifth Third partnered with dotmobi, the company behind the .mobi Internet addresses created specifically for locating content that works on all mobile phones, to provide the first two-character mobile Internet domain -- http://53.mobi. In addition to dotmobi, Fifth Third partnered with VeriSign Messaging and Mobile Media which is a division of VeriSign, Inc. VeriSign’s part in the mobile banking of Fifth Third is to provide mobile banking alert services through short message service (SMS) messaging to Fifth Third’s active online banking customers. In 2011, Fifth Third chose ClairMail mobile banking solution to grow their mobile initiative and provide their customers with effective and convenient mobile service. The platform of ClairMail allows customers to perform various banking activities and give them the ability to sign up for personalized alerts over SMS, while defining preferences for alert triggers (low-balance thresholds or event occurrences that activate alerts) and frequency. During the same year, Fifth Third Bank launched the mobile banking applications for smartphones such as Apple, Blackberry, and Android. Furthermore, they added a new feature called text banking; which allows customers to make transfers and get their account information by sending a text message to Fifth Third Bank. 2. INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY OPERATIONS STRATEGY. Fifth Third Bank’s Information Technology team focuses on six areas as their strategy. The six areas of focus are Customer Experience, Operational Excellence, Profitable Growth, Risk Management, IT Infrastructure, and Organizational Effectiveness. The eBusiness to Consumer Information Systems must align with the IT strategy to be effective and beneficial for the Bank. The IT Strategy also aligns directly with Fifth Third’s Corporate Strategy. The eBusiness to Consumer Information Systems, specifically Internet and Mobile Banking Systems, was created for a better customer experience. The Internet and Mobile Banking Information Systems allow any Fifth Third Bank customer to access their personal or business bank accounts at anytime for their convenience. Prior to Internet and Mobile Banking, customers’ account access was limited to the operational hours of banking centers. The IT Mission Statement focusing on Customer states, “We will collaborate to efficiently deliver innovative technology solutions that our internal and external customers can rely on to realize today’s goals and tomorrow’s dreams. We will earn our Customer’s trust through the effective delivery of resilient, secure products and services while balancing business needs with industry and regulatory requirements.” Internet and Mobile Banking improve customer experience by eliminating the need for personal check balancing which can often be difficult and erroneous for some. Account access on the systems calculates current balances and keeps a detailed log of all transactions associated with the account. More importantly for piece-of-mind, the system is protected with state of the art security features. Fifth Third Bank uses the highest standards of encryption available, including the use of Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology, which prevents data from being read, if intercepted during transmission. The system also has an automatic time-out feature which automatically logs an online session out after 15 minutes of non-activity. The last security feature in place in the system is an enhanced authentication technology that tracks the characteristics of your login session and determines if it is high risk. Depending on the scenario, denial of access may be appropriate to safeguard information, so the user will need to verify their identity from a computer to regain access to Internet and Mobile banking. The Internet & Mobile Banking system is essentially a giant database that allows both the customers and employees to access accounts, requiring that it must have a processor capable of supporting potentially hundreds of thousands of users accessing it at the same time. The Information Technology team devoted to eBusiness to Consumer continuously monitors and repairs any symptoms the Internet and Mobile banking system may be experiencing. A procedural manual is in place for common errors with detailed instructions on how to resolve the issues. Other inputs of the system from the Fifth Third side include data entry for new customer/account set-ups and marketing information offering customers the latest product promotions and interest rates. From this database system of customer information, product information, and marketing promotions, Fifth Third Bank hopes to add value to the customer by informing and adding convenience to their experience. 3. VALUE FOR IT FOR ONLINE & MOBILE BANKING Who uses the information from the IS, how and for what purpose' Data mining is a useful competitive tool that can be used for target marketing, customer segmentation, security, innovation, profitability, credit scoring and approval, detecting fraudulent transaction and predicting default payments in the banking industry. 3.1.A. Internal Use by Fifth Third Bank Joseph R. Robinson Chief Information Officer (CIO) at Fifth Third The CIO ensures that IT operations are in line with the overall bank mission statement and furthermore align IT and the business side of the bank. IT draws raw data and through data mining feeds different departments with relevant information that helps those departments execute their goals and in turn this improves the organizational effectiveness. IT also provides solutions to the business side of the bank it could be technical or innovative. Digital Delivery: Larry McClanahan, vice president and director of Digital Delivery Due to increased customer demand of efficient mobile services Fifth Third partnered with Clairmail mobile banking solutions in February 2011 to provide its customers with greater control over their personal finances through mobile web, SMS and a client application on virtually any mobile device, including the iPhone. Customers can now check account balances, perform account transfers and view transaction history. In December of the same year they introduced the mobile App and text banking because customers were opting more towards mobile when it came to managing their finances. These were developments made after assessing customer preferences from analyzing information from information systems. Marketing and Sales: Lea Ann Stevenson, Vice President, Marketing Director at Fifth Third The department can use data to analyze customer databases and profile their product and service preferences. By doing this, banks then know what to offer their customers and what to save money on. By offering customers the right services this can help boost profits. “Marketing and sales systems may be used in connection with some site pages, downloadable mobile applications and HTML-formatted email messages to measure the effectiveness of the bank’s communications and the success of marketing campaigns.” The bank mines customer demographics and account data along different product lines. Bank call centers are provided with these customer accounts and what kind of products to pitch to them such as health insurance and mutual loans. Risk Management The bank reduces its risk by determining those customers that are likely to default on their accounts. This is done by use of credit scores or by analyzing credit behavior history of individual customers. It makes it easier to decide who to approve for loans, extend credit and who to give new credit cards to. Security: Joe Bernik, Chief Information Security Officer of Fifth Third Fraudulent detection is one of the most important things in banking. By analyzing patterns in credit transactions and online transactions that lead to fraud the security department can curb potential frauds before they occur. Moreover, before a customer logs in online they are alerted of any recent online frauds that have occurred and what precautionary measures to take. Their website also provides information on fraud alerts. Customer Acquisition and Retention Customer service department compiles statistics of customer questions and response rates of customer service personnel on resolving customer questions. Data mining can help discover new customers by compiling data of non-customers that frequent their website and then target their advertising towards those potential customers. Incentives are also used to retain customers. For example, Fifth Third recently introduced the DUO Card that is a combined debit and credit card, one of the real life rewards with using this card is “free Cell Phone Protection if your phone is accidentally damaged or stolen. Simply pay your wireless phone bill each month with your Fifth Third Bank credit card.” 3.2.B. EXTERNAL USE Customers/Clients Through online and mobile banking customers have easy access to their accounts. Different systems allow them to access a history of their transactions. Online financial calculators allow customers to calculate their mortgages and refinancing and equity lines and loans. Moreover, there is also a planning center that provides saving and budgeting plans, retirement plans and education savings. Access to all this data helps customers make more informed financial decisions in a quick and efficient way. Suppliers and Vendors Fifth Third Banks is a large bank that interacts with a wide range of vendors and suppliers. Suppliers of different products and or services will need access to different kinds of information. For example, advertising service providers help determine which of the bank’s advertisements are most likely to be of interest to customers to achieve this they need to analyze data of client behavior such as how often they click on an advertisement or what services they respond to base on the type of advertisement. 4. ISSUES OR CHALLENGES TO 5/3rd COMPETITIVENESS. In his 2011 annual report to shareholders the CEO of 5th/ 3rd Kevin. T. Kabat stated that, “the increasingly competitive environment is a result primarily of changes in technology, product delivery systems and the accelerating pace of consolidation among financial service providers.” Fifth Third’s strength is in its technological innovations and growth strategy through mergers and acquisitions. Hence these two areas are critical in their success and yet face the most challenges or threats. Basic online banking platform as a product offering is no longer enough to maintain worse still increase competitive advantage. New capabilities have had to be built to create a competitive advantage. The accelerating pace of consolidation among financial service providers is a threat to 5th/3rd’s growth strategy especially when it comes to attracting and retaining customers. Thus, it has become critical for 5th/3rd to increase the efficiency in which they merge and acquire other banks failure to do so could affect their growth and profitability. 4.1 Continuous Mergers & Acquisitions The banking industry has evolved from using IT for limited support purposes such as payroll to using it significantly to help build capabilities and as a source of strategy that helps create competitive edge. The most common integration issues faced during mergers are different banking applications, different IT environments, different banking services, different operational standards, and procedures, and personnel training. 4.2 A MESSY ACQUISITION OF FIRST NATIONAL BANKSHARES FLORIDA! February 14, 2005 5/3rd completed its acquisition of First National Bankshares Florida (F.N.B) a subsidiary bank of First National Bank for US $1.5 billion . This acquisition put 5/3rd’s commitment to innovation (a part of their mission statement) to the test. F.N.B itself had been acquiring but had not yet fully incorporated those acquisitions into its system. “Within its organization were five separate legacy archives on five different platforms-all from previous acquisitions, all of which had to be maintained for research purposes. Their data included multiple terabytes of imaged checks, signature cards, COLD reports and document images residing in many different proprietary systems,” this increased the complexity of incorporating the acquired accounts and data into the new system. 4.2.A.MAJOR CHALLENGES: INTEGRATING TWO DIFFERENT IT SYSTEMS Centralized System VS Decentralized System 5/3rd’s challenge was, how was it going to incorporate F.N.B’s multiple data archives that were not fully integrated into their own system into 5/3rd’s existing system' It would be costly to maintain outdated hardware and software and would increase the cost of researching legacy data. Moreover, 5/3rd’s employees possibly would not know how to access the data. The institution would have to train its customer service representatives on each system, serving former F.N.B customers using the individual legacy system and serving 5/3rd customers on their current system. This would just create confusion amongst employees, inefficiencies and employees could quickly lose moral meaning your customers are not receiving high quality service when your customers are the core of your business. Clearly a decentralized system was risky especially if the system was to fail considering the Florida F.N.B alone had “90 full service locations with approximately US$ 5 billion in deposits and approximately US $ 7 billion in assets” , which could be easily lost. 5/3rd resolved to streamlining data to increase efficiency, reduce unnecessary costs and reduce risk following mergers and acquisitions. They outsourced ProfitStars a reputable company that had expertise in conversion solutions; this company used its enterprise conversion solutions to centralize data by converting data of multiple systems into Fifth Third Bankcorp. To assure a continuous smooth flow of operations 5/3rd chose to continue running its legacy system whilst conversion was underway. ProfitStars began its conversions before the acquisition had closed and trained the bank’s staff on the conversion application this ensured an easy and efficient process. 4.2.B. 5TH/3RD BANK CULTURE VS. F.N.B CULTURE 11 months into the merger Tom Quinn was named as new president of 5/3rd Bank (South Flordia), when he arrived the F.N.B employee turnover was 70%. F.N .B had 77 branches in Florida compared to 5th/3rd’s 16 branches; this caused disruption among management in the higher levels of the organization. Fifth Third’s longtime president Collin Kvetko whom US Bank Magazine named the fifth Most Powerful woman in banking was now answerable to Kevin Hale First National President. Collin who was leading in the takeover of F.N.B was now under the president of the bank she took over the politics was intense and 5 months into the acquisition she left. Tom Hale left himself left in December 2005. “Eight months into the deal, nearly a dozen top notch leaders from First National also left. This included First National's former chief operating officer, chief financial officer and two in-house lawyers.” This was a major loss of intellectual capital with a lot of changes in leadership, employees complained of not being recognized, there were constant debates, gossiping and clashes of the 5th /3rd employees versus the “new” F.N.B employees. There was also higher than normal customer dissatisfaction. “According to SEC documents the South Florida operations saw a slight drop in total deposits, from $3,556,000 in 2005 to $3,551,000 in 2006.” Quinn’s challenge was to create a new culture, a comradely in the workplace. He rehired Colleen and recruited and assembled a new team. The Gallup organization was hired to carry out monthly customer surveys and annual employee surveys. The president conducted 8a.m monthly conference calls to all the staff and those who missed it could access it on the website. They started employee recognition program that allowed employees to vote for peers, rewards were quarterly cash rewards. Managers began to receive weekly emails about leadership. Branches opened for Saturday walk in hours. Quinn did manage to turn things around for the better. Turnover dropped to 30 % and they managed to open 100 more branches. 4.3 CHALLENGE OF DISINTEGRATING TWO SYSTEMS Fifth Third sold FTPS (Fifth Third Processing Solutions) which was a HUGE part of the company, they processed all of the card transactions when customers would use a Fifth Third debit or credit card to purchase at retail stores. The banking industry is subject to a number of government regulations, when Fifth Third Bank sold FTPS the systems had to be completely separate because there was so much customer data in the systems. The process of completely separating the systems took from June 2009 – September 2011 to complete…one of the biggest undertakings the bank has had to go through. It was basically the opposite effect of incorporating different systems into one like the acquisitions. 5. USING IT TO CREATE A SUSTAINABLE ADVANTAGE. A sustainable advantage occurs when barriers exist that make it difficult for competitors to imitate your actions or for customers to switch. Unlike the late 1990’s when only the largest national banks had Internet banking available, nearly every bank, regional and even local utilize Internet and Mobile banking systems in order to compete. Federal regulations, market interest rates, and fierce competition makes it very difficult for a bank to maintain a sustainable advantage. In the late 1990’s when the first Internet banking system was launched, this was merely a short-term competitive advantage as it wasn’t long before other banks developed their own Internet banking systems. Products and services offered in the banking industry will only maintain a competitive advantage for a short period of time before other banks develop similar products and services. This has led to banks demanding more from their Information Technology departments to be innovative in ways to deliver value to customers in ways unlike the rest of the industry and also to become less costly and more efficient. One project that Fifth Third’s IT team is currently rolling out is known as “PopMoney”. This function of the Internet and Mobile banking system is a safe and convenient way for customers to pay other people without the need of withdrawing money or writing a check. “PopMoney” (Pay other People) is found under the Transfer menu in the online system and the only information a customer needs from the person they are paying is either their cell phone number or email address. By entering either a cell phone number or email address of the person the customer wants to pay money to, the system will deliver a message via text or email for step-by-step instructions on how to receive the funds. This is just one innovative project that the IT team has been working on to gain an advantage over other Regional banks in particular. A project in which IT was effective at reducing costs and increasing efficiency was the Branch Capture Project developed in 2006. The Branch Capture Project was a process put into place to handle all checks electronically which makes check processing faster and more efficient. Before the Branch Capture Project, Fifth Third Bank would physically move original paper checks from the bank where the checks are deposited to the banks that pay them. This process drastically reduced the overall time it takes to clear a check for both Fifth Third’s customers and any other banks involved. Again, Fifth Third was not the first mover in implementing electronic check processing, but they were one of the first Regional banks to do so, and consistently being one of the first few in implementing technology to their operations has had a positive correlation in being a leader in the banking industry. 6. NEW BUSINESS TO CONSUMER SYSTEM’S DRAWBACKS. The Gomez Benchmark Performance Index provides a comprehensive scoreboard of web and mobile site performance in different industries within United States and around the world. It measures the performance of banking web and mobile sites in terms of response time, availability, and consistency at regular intervals throughout the business day from multiple locations. Furthermore, it provides a comprehensive scoreboard of web and mobile site performance in different industries within United States and around the world in terms of response time, availability, and consistency at regular intervals throughout the business day from multiple locations. For financial institutions websites, users have higher expectations for web performance than any other industry such as retail shoppers. Therefore, when any financial institution has any problem in its website performance, customers usually translate this in terms of site security. Thus, website performance and availability is vital for banks. As of the first quarter of 2004, Fifth Third has over 750,000 active Internet Banking Customers and over 110,000 active Bill Payment users. Fifth Third has processed over 6 million payments for more than one and a half billion dollars via the Internet Banking and Bill Payment System. Likewise, in 2008, there were over 28.4 Billion transactions processed by Fifth Third Bank with 99.998% service availability. Unfortunately, all these capabilities that Fifth Third Bank offered its customers through its eBusiness system have changed and significantly dropped. In recent years, Fifth Third Bank hasn’t even showed on the annual report of the Gomez Banking Performance Index. For instance in its 2012 report, Gomez identified the best 20 US retail banks in terms of availability, response time, and consistency. Fifth Third Bank didn’t appear on that list where the 20th bank’s availability time was 94.07%. Many customers have been complaining about the website connection and loading time. One of the main drawbacks of the online banking of Fifth Third Bank is that the customer service department, which is responsible of responding to technical issues related to the sites, is only available during the regular banking hours (8am – 8pm Monday – Saturday). This apparently would contrary the main advantage of having internet and mobile banking that is 24 hours availability during the seven days of the week especially if the customer is facing some technical problems accessing his\her account. As mentioned earlier in this report that Fifth Third Bank growth strategy is based on mergers and acquisitions. Despite the business and return value that those mergers and acquisitions might bring, they could become eventually barrier in terms of information technology for example. Many technological problems arise when migrating or integrating systems of a business unit’s functionalities from one platform to another which what could be facing Fifth Third Bank in their Information Technology in general. Though Fifth Third Bank has launched mobile banking applications for smartphones, only the iPhone application has a truly mobile banking application. However, Android and Blackberry’s mobile applications serve as mobile web launchers that take users to Fifth Third’s mobile banking website. Additionally, the mobile banking offered by Fifth Third does not currently support the mobile check deposit. This feature allows customers to deposit checks by taking photos of these checks using the device’s camera. Fifth Third’s IT team is working on rolling this project out within the next year to meet customer demands. Despite the concerns of the security issues arising from deploying the mobile check deposits such as check fraud, customers are changing their banks just to seek this feature. Of the top 10 U.S. banks, Chase, PNC Bank, and U.S. Bank are the only ones to offer the mobile check deposit feature. 7. RECOMMENDATIONS TO 5/3rd BANK. With the many drawbacks of Fifth Third Bank’s eBusiness to Consumer system, we feel there is definitely room for improvement. In an attempt to reenter the Gomez Banking Performance Index, Fifth Third will have to improve on their IT talent acquisition for future innovations and continue to add value to the existing system in place for improved customer experience. The first and immediate improvement that Fifth Third has to do with their Internet and Mobile banking system is extend customer service support and add technical support for after hours. As mentioned in the drawbacks, customer support over the phone is only offered Monday through Saturday from 8am to 8pm; this conflicts with the original purpose of the online banking system to add convenience and availability to the customer. Although the customer can access their accounts 24 hours per day and 7 days per week with the online system, they will only be able to conduct certain transactions (requiring customer service) and address any questions during the 12 hour timeframe that customer support is available. In addition to this drawback, the support that is offered over the phone is strictly for account inquiries and banking questions. We feel that the support offered to the customer would be much more helpful and catering to the customer if there were technical support specialists available as well. If a customer has a technical problem and calls into the customer service line, the operator may or may not be able to help the customer. If not, the customer service representative will have to submit the problem to IT which may not even be received until the next business day. Adding technical support and offering support 24 hours per day would certainly improve the Internet and Mobile banking system at Fifth Third Bank. Once this new support system is in place, Fifth Third will need to move on product and service innovations such as the check deposit via camera cell phone mentioned, and consistently be a first mover on these new technologies to remain a Regional bank leader.