CouncilBi-weekly

Retail Council

Retail banking strategy and operations

Prep sessions

Bottom Line Up Front

1.
Retail still needs to keep the conversation on banker and customer friction, not feature progress. The core problem remains fragmented maintenance, weak digital account-opening conversion, and too much manual follow-up.
2.
OAO is more live this week than it was last Sunday. Bottle Rocket has a two-day discovery workshop on June 22-23, 2026, which means Retail is now in active definition mode and should force a decision cadence, not just continue comparisons.
3.
Account maintenance remains the clearest near-term retail value lever. August scope matters because it should remove swivel-chair work and improve banker confidence in common servicing flows.
4.
Deposit pressure is still best framed as mix, not raw growth. The strongest accessible internal signal remains lagging NIB even while year-over-year core deposit growth was reported as positive.
5.
Retail still lacks a fresh two-week scorecard in the accessible workspace. That reporting gap is a council issue, not just a prep limitation.

Talking Points

Retail Performance

›No fresh retail dashboard, deposit scorecard, or abandonment report was found in the accessible workspace for the last two weeks.
›The best current internal retail-adjacent funding signal still comes from treasury prep completed this week:
›year-over-year core deposit growth was reported at `7.2%`
›April customer deposits were down `$36 million`
›net interest income ran `$1.8 million` unfavorable to budget
›net interest margin compressed `3 bps`
›NIB balances were estimated down about `$3,000` on average across `48,000` business accounts, or about `$144 million`
›Justin should keep asking for one simple retail operating view by market:
›core deposit growth
›checking accounts opened versus lost
›digital versus Community Bank opening mix
›abandonment and fraud-referral rates
›top reasons driving Customer Care or banker follow-up

OAO & Digital

›OAO formal build is still `0%` in the June 14 shared portfolio context, but discovery is active and now has immediate calendar momentum.
›This week's new signal is the `Bottle Rocket Discovery Work Shop` on June 22-23, 2026. That is the strongest concrete sign that OAO is still moving, even without a locked delivery path.
›The strategic issue has not changed:
›current tools create user frustration and abandonment
›only `7%` of accounts were being opened online in the standing charter
›the current digital experience under-represents First United's relationship model
›Historic charter funnel data still points to heavy drop-off:
›`24%` after contact info starts
›`49%` by occupation
›`74%` at funding
›Council-level forcing question: what exact date will lock the target customer experience and operating model, not just narrow the vendor field?

Customer Experience

›The best direct customer-experience evidence is still the maintenance discovery and account-maintenance source set. No fresher field scorecard was recovered this week.
›The frontline pattern remains consistent:
›common maintenance flows still take about `15 minutes`
›adding or removing a person remains a primary but cumbersome scenario
›online-banking updates can fail after ownership changes and create follow-up Salesforce work
›bankers still bounce across SilverLake, printing, document upload to UView, and later correction loops
›debit-card flow and search accuracy were both recurring pain points
›Justin's framing should stay blunt: Retail does not get to claim a better customer experience until it can show fewer exceptions, less rework, fewer handoffs, and faster confident banker execution.

Transformation Lens

›Vision 2030 shows up in Retail only if the experience feels relationship-first in both digital acquisition and Community Bank servicing.
›OAO and account maintenance should still be treated as one retail experience agenda, not two separate technology threads.
›Retail change-load is becoming a real governance problem:
›account maintenance is still pushing toward August
›OAO discovery is intensifying this week
›the same shared architecture, integration, Java, and leadership signoff constraints show up here too

Key Decisions

1.Confirm the OAO decision cadence: what date will Retail recommend a path, and what evidence must exist by then?
2.Decide whether August maintenance scope is being protected tightly enough to land with quality and adoption.
3.Require a standing retail scorecard for council review instead of discussing retail health through anecdotes and adjacent treasury signals.
4.Clarify whether Retail has the change capacity to absorb account maintenance, OAO discovery follow-through, and adjacent release pressure without degrading frontline adoption.

Watch Items

›Bottle Rocket discovery could create momentum without corresponding decision rights.
›Java developer capacity remains a shared constraint for retail delivery.
›Expere and ownership-type sequencing still influence maintenance readiness.
›Deposit-mix pressure remains a retail issue because onboarding quality, relationship depth, and treasury-services attachment all affect NIB outcomes.
›Sparse current reporting remains the biggest blind spot.

Next Actions

1.Push for a council-level commitment on OAO decision timing and required evidence.
2.Ask for a current retail operating scorecard before the next confirmed council session.
3.Reinforce that August maintenance success should be judged on banker adoption and friction removed, not code complete.
4.Keep tying deposit mix back to relationship depth, onboarding quality, and follow-up discipline.