Capital One and TD are bringing engineers and product managers to new locations around town

While the Work from home the movement has emptied some legal and corporate offices Software engineers and financial product managers keep coming to Center City. Two of the nation’s largest banks have recently announced that they are expanding their new product centers here:

Virginia-based Capital One Financial Corp. has leased the 37th floor of 1735 Market St., one of the tallest towers in Philadelphia, and will open it next spring as one of two new technology and product development centers. of the company, said Jay Michelini. , responsible for the bank’s technology strategy and operations.

“A lot of people want to live in the city. So we’re creating an environment that tech people want,” said Michelini, a Chester County native.

And Toronto-based TD Bank Group has turned half of the 15-year-old University City branch of its US subsidiary into an “innovation lab,” says its leader, Colleen Duke, who grew up in Burlington County.

With more customers banking remotely, “this is the best use for this space,” which includes rooms set up to test new products and services, such as ATMs with special customer authentication features to prevent fraud and digital banking from gamified virtual reality. apps, she said.

These are the latest companies to join the Vanguard Group, an entirely suburban company headquartered in Malvern, Chester County, which, however, opened a 17,000-square-foot “innovation hub” at 2300 Chestnut St. in 2017. That site continues to serve as the company’s home base for tech-savvy youngsters eager to live in the city and reluctant to make the hour-plus twice-daily train and van ride to and from the main campus of the investment giant.

TD and Capital One rank among the top 10 US banks; each accounts for more than a quarter of the $600 billion in deposits at all banks in the Philadelphia metro region, according to federal bank data.

That’s mainly because they base the national accounts from their offices in the Wilmington area, where they can benefit from Delaware’s low taxes and liberal lending laws. But hiring managers in Wilmington have complained that competition from employers in such a small market (which surrounds New Castle County accounts for less than a tenth of the 6.2 million people in Greater Philadelphia) has caused hiring there extra difficult.

So Capital One’s Michelini plans to transfer two senior managers to the new Philadelphia center from Wilmington, where Capital One has an office tower and employs 500 people.

“We are still very committed to Wilmington, but we know there is more [in Pennsylvania]and we want to meet that talent wherever they are,” he said.

The office is accessible to urban and suburban transportation lines a few blocks away and by pedestrian tunnels. “Being in the city will give us a great point of presence,” convenient to city neighborhoods and commuter trains, Michelini said.

The Capital One managers moving to Philadelphia (Amanda Cronin, vice president of product management, and Andrey Utis, vice president of engineering) will lead a team of 100 software engineers, technical staff, and product managers there, reporting to Michelini in Wilmington. The company has a similar urban technology office in Atlanta, a hub for the payments industry.

Recent technology initiatives at Capital One, the kind of projects Michelini says will be built in Philadelphia, include an “Advance Paycheck” option, which eliminates the two-day float that many banks still impose on deposit customers. payroll by accelerating risk and fraud identification. .

“The challenge is making these decisions in real time and with less information,” Michelini said. “We use big data from millions of customers at scale.”

For Capital One, the Philadelphia office also serves as a college recruiting magnet. “We are looking to grow our current partnerships” with area engineering schools, Michelini said.

The company also hopes to boost engagement with nonprofits it has previously supported, such as the Kid coded Y technological impact software training programs, Hope Center at Temple University, Y boys latin high school in West Philadelphia.

Capital One staff can work from home or from the office, so Michelini said his staff is reviewing what amenities they can add to make the office attractive.

The bank has few branches and prefers to work with clients remotely, although it operates a Capital One Cafe near Rittenhouse Square and another in King of Prussia.

TD, by contrast, has one of the largest branch networks in the region, although, like its competitors, it has been closing offices as more customers move online.

In its 6,000-square-foot office in University City, leased from neighboring University of Pennsylvania, TD has reduced its branch staff from 20 to 10, as more people bank remotely, and divided the rest into spaces for their product innovation teams, reporting back to Duke and their bosses.

Those spaces include a “collaboration” room for staff meetings, training and “brainstorming,” and for use by community groups like the University City District Y People’s Emergency Center; a “focus room,” where customers test new applications using virtual reality demonstrators as well as physical products; an “observation room”, to watch testers and gauge their reactions through a two-way mirror; and a “build room” to produce new signs and digital merchandising assistants, Duke said in a brief tour.

The test is more effective because it takes place at a work location familiar to customers, Duke added. The branch is also convenient for TD staff in offices in West Center City and within walking distance of its US headquarters in Marlton.

Among the projects TD is preparing to test at the University City site are the company’s “Odyssey” customer chat system; “gamification” instructions for smartphone banking users; banking services for customers with hearing and visual disabilities; self-service kiosks and new ATM hardware.

Additional work proposed for the center includes testing new workstations, developing “digital business cards,” software hack-athons, and adapting augmented reality and virtual reality software to product testing.

Both TD and Capital One purchased their office bases in the Philadelphia area through acquisitions of innovative retail banks headquartered in the area. TD purchased South Jersey-based Commerce Bancorp from Vernon Hill in 2008, while Capital One acquired branchless ING Direct from Arkadi Kuhlmann and its Wilmington headquarters in 2012.

“We have been in the Greater Philadelphia region for a decade. We know there is great talent here,” Michelini said. “Now we meet with the talent in your area,” including Philadelphia.