Innovating Trust and Fraud Prevention in Banking with Jill Castilla

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Michael Praeger 

Welcome to The Power of Change, the podcast that delves into the intersection of leadership and technology in the finance world. I’m your host, Michael Prager, the CEO and co-founder of AvidXchange. In each episode, I dive into the leadership topics and industry trends with business leaders, partners, and customers who embrace the power of change. 

0:21  

Today, I’m super excited to host Jill Castilla, who is the CEO and President of Citizens Bank in Edmond, Oklahoma. Jill has been an AvidXchange customer since 2015 using our invoice and AP automation for financial services to drive accounts payable process within her business. 

In addition, Jill’s been on the forefront of using technology and innovation to make real change throughout her career. Welcome, Jill.  

0:47  

First of all, you know, before joining Citizens Bank of Edmond, you served in the U.S. Army and the Oklahoma Army National Guard. Some rich experiences, I’m sure, from that point in time of your life. And maybe can you share, you know, some of the lessons learned from that chapter of your life that helped shape you in terms of the leader that you are today?  

1:06  

Jill Castilla 

Yes. I was able to serve as an enlisted member on the Army team and then went to the Federal Reserve after that for a decade. So definitely both experiences were very formative into what type of leader I am today. Being the entry level soldier, there’s nothing like that in corporate America to be able to describe the power dynamic to be completely powerless, but to have responsibilities from an ethical standpoint that you’re supposed to obey all orders except for an illegal one. And so you have to have the wear it all as a private to know the difference.  

And so, I was a construction surveyor in the army and the army national guard, and that transitioned to being a construction engineer. In that capacity, I would lead survey crews and whenever you’re doing a survey, it’s not that dissimilar to how it is today. 

1:57 

We had a little bit of GPS and laser technology back then, but you still had a clear line of sights typically,  even today. And so we would use, especially when I was in the National Guard, we would use local prisoners to be able to clear pathways so that we could get line of sight or pull tapes. 

And so my survey crew would be usually members of the service, but also civilians that potentially, you know, were incarcerated. And so several of my projects were around that. So I built roadways. I did mainly horizontal construction moving, buildings and such, employing utilities. How that really built me into the leader I am today is, you know, that had to be very collaborative. 

2:39 

You had to build trust. I’m not out of positional authority because you didn’t have any, but you had to build trust by finding commonality and what we care about. My leader at that time was very mission first people always. Like you get the, you get the mission done, but you take care of people as a result. Knowing how to stand up and having professional courage was also, that was my first experience in having to do that. As a woman in the military back then, it was a lot different than what it is today. And so being able to stay safe but also create professional credibility. There’s a lot of things I learned there that I carried over, especially during the turnaround of Citizens. I came here and the bank was a five rated bank in trouble condition. And so leading that turnaround requires some of the same or similar professional courage. 

3:24 

Michael Praeger 

All right. So let’s stop right there because I think this is going to be fascinating. How do you kind of make that transition from being construction surveyor in the military to the banking industry? How did you make that bridge? How did you get into banking from that start in the military and being in construction? 

3:44 

Jill Castilla  

Yeah. So I was originally an engineering major, which is why I can chose that profession and the core of engineers with the military. And so when I married my husband and we were stationed in Hawaii, I couldn’t transfer credits very easily. And so I found a college that was very liberal in transferring them into more of a business program. 

And I did well in engineering, but it was a struggle. But when I started taking Business Calculus versus regular Calculus and being able to really understand the mathematics behind econometrics and finance theory, I really found my groove and I loved it so much. And so during that time, my mother married into a family that owns part of Citizens Bank of Edmond. 

5:29 

And so then I had this professional kind of personal alignment. When I was growing up, I would carry groceries out at the local grocery store and I was being raised by a single dad and the local matriarch of the banking family – I would carry groceries out for her and she’s the one that would pay for me to take the ACT, encourage me to leave our small town and pursue greater dreams. 

And so to be able to think about having a career that I could emulate her and that was further reinforced after I went to the Graduate School of Banking when I was at the Federal Reserve, being able to see that both how really beautiful community banking is where you’re having this really fun experience and complicated time management of the balance sheet to maximize earnings, but the social impact that you can make in the social capital that you built is just as fulfilling, if not more so, than the financial capital.  

5:21  

Michael Praeger 

Excellent. All right. So, you know, something I think that the listeners probably don’t know about you is that when you did make that transition – you started at Citizens Bank. I believe you started in the bookkeeping department making minimum wage. Okay. So lots of transformation you’ve had and just going from, the military, the army, construction surveying to Citizens Bank. But then at Citizens Bank, you know, that progression from entry-level bookkeeping to becoming the role that you’re in today as a CEO and President is really remarkable. Tell me about that role and how did you do that?  

6:00  

Jill Castilla  

Well, this may ring true for those that are in banking, but I’ve worked in bookkeeping, which that really doesn’t exist anymore. It was actually on the second floor of the bank and there’s only a women’s restroom up there because back then only women were the ones in bookkeeping and so now we have operations, highly complex, very diverse group that’s working in that field.  

So I worked in bookkeeping for several months and applied for my dream job at, in the management development program at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. And so I left and went through the management development program for about a decade, managing all these different departments at the Fed from cash, facilities, management, HR, public relations, financial management – just every single area I got to be exposed to also leading basically the electronic checking area of the bank. I managed the Check 21 servers for the Federal Reserve System, all the check-crossing equipment throughout the Federal Reserve System. 

And also led like the business enhancements and troubleshooting whenever those sites would go down. Back then there was 21 Check processing sites – now we have one. But I think those early experiences, both as a surveyor being enlisted in the military and then serving in a role where I was balancing the bank and dealing, you know, processing overdrafts, working the proof department, you’re just learning that it’s hard work. 

7:16  

Like you have to do as well as lead – there’s really no- you can’t just be one or the other. Like you have to do both in community banking, especially. And that’s certainly – we have 60 team members now in our bank and they’re all doers and leaders. And so when I came back to the bank, I was at a bank in northern Minnesota, working in the finance department. 

My stepfather called and said the bank had received a terrible examination and he was concerned about the viability of the bank going forward and so he asked if I would come back and help. I came back in and didn’t really have any positional authority, kind of like being a private again, even though I was in the highest-level finance position in the previous spot and found rapid abuse of the bank and resulted in a complete turnover of the senior leadership.  

And so that led to me being the CFO here, then moving over and being the Chief Credit Officer. No one else was coming. That’s kind of a military term where you’re saying like, you know, “If not me, who? If not now, when? Because there’s no one else coming. 

8:13 

And so it was as always not necessarily even saying yes, but just doing what needed to be done, whether that was being in the finance area, or being in credit or doing loans or all of that just led to having a lot of experience really fast to whenever we needed a CEO.  

I actually was expecting to leave the bank. Being the person leading a turnaround doesn’t necessarily build a lot of trust. It actually erodes it quite a bit. And so I didn’t know if I was really the right person for the job. So when the board approached me about doing that. My stipulations were like, I’m not going to stay here and then sell. So we have to be committed to being here for another hundred years.  

And then we have to be willing to make some hard decisions to – we ended up selling all of our branch locations, investing that in technology so that we could be relevant and sustainable for another century. And so that was a huge turning point and really is what kept me here at Citizens. The bank is owned primarily by Employee Stock Ownership Programs. So there’s also a really unique sense of ownership we have at this bank.  

9:15 

Michael Praeger  

You’ve been recognized as an innovation leader, maybe share some of the trends that you see and kind of what are some of those innovations that are just critical for community banks to keep their eye on and be in the forefront of adopting to stay relevant? 

9:32 

Jill Castilla 

Yeah. Community banks have such close proximity for the customer that is the envy of every fintech or larger institution. And then our flattened organizational cultures where we have the ease kind of like a startup mentality where you have such an easy way to be able to implement change where we don’t have, unfortunately, we don’t have the benefit of having like 10, 000 IT employees like they may have at Chase, but they also have almost 10, 000 layers to their organizational structure whenever they’re making change. And so we can do things that no one else can do.  

So, you know, for us, that means we’ve secured a patent. We have in operation or remote small business ATM that we have deployed that worked exceptionally well during COVID. And we have another patent pending. 

It’s making unique partnerships where we partner with Mark Cuban on two different projects. It’s working with like-minded fintechs that want to have a community banking kind of mindset, like a Teslar that gives away their technology for free, just to test it out essentially for community banks and then partner with them going forward. 

10:37  

So we’re in a really unique position to be able to assess technology quickly, whether that’s AI, whether it’s just going to the cloud, a new app that’s developed or wow, okay, ChatGPT was so yesterday. Now we have a new AI that we can open source that we can do other great things with it. Doesn’t use as much energy.  

I mean the world is changing so quickly and the proximity to the customer and the how quick we can be with change and gaining knowledge and then implementing it into our systems is so unique. And so it’s hard to pinpoint like one technology. It’s really our ability, if we’re open to it, to assess a lot of technologies as they’re emerging quickly, to be able to determine what will impact our customers in the best way, as well as what will help the bank be more sustainable. 

12:12  

Michael Praeger 

Right no, I think that’s really well said. So one of the things that I found interesting and just learning more about you is in addition to all the great work at Citizens Bank, you also founded ROGER, which is I think a digital-first military bank. Tell us a little bit about Roger. 

11:41 

Jill Castilla 

Yes. So when I enlisted in the military, I had a very close family member that wrote checks to my account the entire time that I was gone to training. So for about a year that I was gone, my accounts were emptied. I didn’t have enough financial literacy, you know, that I could have demanded the bank repay me for all those fraudulent items. 

Instead they just said, “Too bad.” It happened to be Citizens bank that did that. So that doesn’t happen now. But whenever we were brought – we were brought the opportunity with a fintech legend, Bryan Clagett, about starting a digital bank. It wasn’t something that immediately resonated with me. 

But I just shared my story with a college group and a young soldier came up to me and said, “Your story is my story. I just had – my mom was on my account and she had a garnishment. And so as soon as I made money, the money was taken out because under 18-year-olds, it’s not easy for them to open independent checking accounts and impossible to do with digital banks. 

12:38 

And so it just coincided with being able to have this opportunity with a digital bank. And so, we started ROGER for that entry-level soldier. There’s been military banks designed for the officers or the more affluent groups in the military, but never one designed for the enlisted service member coming into the military. 

So ROGER’s designed to give them the best of banking, the best rates, no fees, and this great blanket of financial literacy and tools, budgeting tools, so that we can help soldiers and airmen and Marines and other warriors achieve financial success and stability. Instead, right now, more than a quarter of military families are food insecure. 

We have not done a great job of eliminating payday loans. I went to the basic training site located an hour and a half from where I live, where my son is stationed. And there was 29 check cashing offices from his house to this restaurant that we frequent. And when you look at their rates, there were over 200% was the rate that they were charging these young people. 

Well, ROGER’s goal is to eliminate all of that. So there’s lots of people doing great work in the military community, but we haven’t had the focus on eliminating some of those evils. And ROGER’s going to do that and then build economic success for our young service members. It’s ended up resonating with a much larger military community than what we intended. 

14:01  

The bank was not intending to grow at all from this, but we’ve already opened, we currently have 700 accounts in ROGER, which far exceeds what a brick-and-mortar bank could have done in a year.  

14:10  

Michael Praeger 

That’s super exciting. I love the purpose driven aspect of it. So maybe go back to Citizens. You’re in the forefront of implementing lots of different innovations. One of those is accounts payable automation with AvidXchange in 2015. Maybe share, you know, a little bit of advice you have for maybe other finance leaders that are kind of currently looking to, you know, automate this part of their business, bringing their manual paper, AP process into the digital age? 

14:38 

Jill Castilla 

Yeah, I think it’s important both as an institution to think about your AP and then also think about it for the small businesses that you serve. We’re a small business as a community bank. And so we had had a lot of fraud when it came into our accounts payable area. That’s whenever that really caused our complete turn over of senior management. 

And we wanted to make sure that we had adequate controls in place and that we’d be able to investigate fraud quickly. The same is true as we provide those services for our small business customers. And making sure that they’re protected and that they’re timely receiving because we do it on the accounts receivable side as well. 

15:17 

But there are also so that their cash flow is maintained and that they’re also paying without there being fraud as a bank, we see exceptional fraud being carried out in the accounts payable function. And so the more that that can be automated and secured and having. The detection capabilities for potential fraud and the more that we’re protected from unexpected losses. 

15:40 

Michael Praeger 

Yeah, certainly just the conversion of moving from paper checks to electronic payments goes a long way in that fraud dynamic. I think, you know, it’s the whole industries certainly as we’ve kind of moved more innovation, more digital is seeing kind of that uptick in fraud and all the different use cases. You know, maybe talk a little bit more personal about those mindsets or traits that just been, you know, looking back over your career, doing all the things that you have done and leadership’s been kind of a component of every step along the way – you know, what would be those mindsets or traits that you say, you know, this defines me as a leader.  

16:18 

Jill Castilla 

Thank you for asking that. I think it’s constantly learning and knowing that you haven’t achieved like being the ultimate leader at any point, you know, you’re always learning and being humble enough to, you know, the old saying – you can’t teach an old dog new tricks. You can’t live that. You’ve got, you’ve got to always be learning the new tricks and seeking opportunities for feedback on how you can do and be better because it works differently in different environments of where your institution is and its growth path, what the composition of the team looks like generationally, things change a lot.  

We have a really young team here. So it requires being really engaged and understanding them and expanding that mindset. It’s also figuring out what the triggers are that you just are never going to be able to change. What are the things about yourself that are just the core values and I’m always going to hustle. So if you’re around me, you’re going to have to hustle. Like if there’s a job to be done, we’re vying to see who can do it. There’s an assertiveness, a bias to action. So I know that’s difficult for me to work with someone if they’re if they have a hashtag reject the hustle on their laptop. 

17:25 

That’s great. And I appreciate boundaries, but that’s not going to work very well with me. And so and I think to, you know, being respectful, we hustle while we’re here, but also like, we want to be able to give a balance of life to everyone. Not necessarily work-life balance, but just that overall your life should be fulfilling, whether that’s at work or at home and that we’re not needlessly overstepping to someone’s boundaries. 

And so I think being aware of yourself and being able to grow, but then also understanding others. I’m appreciating the diversity of mindsets that come to the table, but then also being somewhat disciplined and that some mindsets may not be a great fit for leadership style. Like, there’s ways that you can change, of course, but then there’s a lot of those clashes that sometimes don’t allow for growth and they can like cause there to be a retraction from the team. 

18:20  

And so just being aware of that and honest with yourself, I think is really important. I work with an executive coach and I wish I would have done that earlier. That provides a lot of raw feedback to me and a lot of debates. I really appreciate that time. You know, I think mental health is even if you’re a go getter and you’re hustling, you’ve got to be able to take the opportunity to engage with others about your wellness and so I think learning that and taking care of your whole self is really important so you bring the best of you to the bank or wherever that is every day. You know, I brought my family and having the balance of whatever else is important to you is important to have so that you’re not so emotionally invested in everything that you do. You’ve got to be able to be professional. And sometimes I probably have leaned a little bit too much into being invested emotionally into the work that I’m doing.  

19:13 

Michael Praeger 

The last transition is I always find it interesting to learn about personal routines. And is there any routines that you do that just gets you ready for the day, the week, the task at hand? And any of those routines that you can share with us.  

19:26 

Jill Castilla 

Yeah. I mean, it probably doesn’t surprise you that I have like a militant routine with the military experience. My husband’s retired military, two of our kids are serving. And so I get up early, so 4:30 every morning. I have my same breakfast at the same place every morning. 

19:43 

So that’s where I do a lot of my readings. I have kind of office hours at the local diner across the street from the bank has been open for almost as long as we have. And it just depends on kind of that morning. Maybe I’ll be there for an hour and a half, or I could be there for three, depending upon who ends up sliding into the booth with me. 

20:02 

At night I do either yoga or Pilates and just kind of a decompression time and a lot of reading too, in the evening to clear that mind of what happened for the day and through physical exercise and through more of a calm practice, but then also have an opportunity to learn so that when I’m going to sleep at night, that’s what is fresh in my brain. And so I wake up the next morning ready to start again.  

20:26 

Michael Praeger 

That’s awesome. Well, I’m just glad the diner opens early enough to meet your schedule. Well, it’s been a great pleasure.  

And a couple of takeaways that I have from today’s discussion was it started with really building trust and the importance of building trust early in her career as she joined the army and the military. And then being mission driven in terms of projects and having a purpose for teammates. 

I think we heard a little bit about impact of role models and kind of the can-do attitude. And then, you know, I really love the learning mindset. I call it growth mindset, curiosity, how we can always be growing. And then the reference to hustle – whether it’s grit, hustle. I love that reference. And if I ever find myself in Edmond now, I know what I’m going to do is get up early and go to the diner and slide into the booth with Jill and have a great discussion.  

Jill Castilla 

Please do. I look forward to it.  

22:23 

Michael Praeger 

Thanks for listening to the Power of Change presented by AvidXchange. If you like what you’ve heard, subscribe to our channel and leave a five-star review. While you’re waiting for the next episode. Head on over to avidxchange.com for our latest research reports and business insights. And if you’re interested in learning more about accounts payable automation from AvidXchange, click the link in our show notes that connect with our experts. Thanks again for listening to the Power of Change. We’ll see you next time.