VERNON HILL: “YOU NEED A NONBANK VIEW TO DO WHAT WE DID”

Vernon talks to Wharton:

“With Commerce, we followed a retailing model and not a banking model,” he says. “From Apple to Sears to McDonald’s, they all came up with an idea, refined it, and rolled it out across the world. I couldn’t have converted a normal bank to our customer service-based model because it is so different. You need a nonbank view to do what we did.”

He points to Commerce’s famous free coin counting machines in each of its branches as an example. Costing thousands of dollars each with zero financial returns, Hill says that traditional banks would never make that kind of investment. But for Commerce, it was part of the process of converting customers into “fans,” which ultimately resulted in profit.

Here’s the video: