Reduced time to onboard new customer support agents from four to six weeks to one to two weeks
Reduced call resolution time from six to four minutes
Accelerated API integration time with scalable, reusable systems
The OneUnited Bank used Google Cloud to build a scalable application framework that personalizes financial guidance, enhances financial literacy, and expands access to wealth-building tools and economic opportunity for its customers.
The OneUnited Bank used Google Cloud to build a scalable application framework that personalizes financial guidance, enhances financial literacy, and expands access to wealth-building tools and economic opportunity for its customers.
Since the 1960s, OneUnited Bank has championed financial literacy as a cornerstone of economic advancement. As America's largest Black-owned bank, certified by the US Treasury as an award-winning Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), OneUnited provides innovative, data-driven tools that promote financial stability and informed decision-making.
The challenge OneUnited set out to solve was systemic: the education system in America does not teach financial literacy K-12. Most Americans are never taught how to manage money, and the consequences of this financial literacy gap are far-reaching.
To address this challenge, the bank developed a Financial Wellness Benefits Program that can aggregate financial account data from any source and then combine real-time money management insights with access to emergency cash flow solutions, such as early paycheck access, credit-building tools, and second-chance banking options.
OneUnited supports its clients' financial wellness in two fundamental ways. First, its innovative money management platform provides clear visibility into income and spending, leveraging artificial intelligence to proactively alert customers of potential financial shortfalls. Secondly, the bank offers practical solutions designed to manage cash flow fluctuations and mitigate the impact of unexpected expenses.
To bring this vision to scale, OneUnited needed a technology partner with industry-leading AI capabilities, enterprise-grade security, and a commitment to responsible innovation. Google Cloud stood out for its advanced infrastructure, seamless integration tools, and conversational AI technologies. Building on early success with customer service automation, OneUnited selected Google Cloud to power its next-generation financial wellness platform — designed to deliver personalized financial guidance, strengthen literacy, and expand access to wealth-building tools and economic opportunity.
Creating a unified cloud foundation
OneUnited already used some Google Cloud solutions, but when its customer base doubled in 60 days following the George Floyd incident in 2020, the bank saw an opportunity to modernize its entire tech stack to further its mission. "The Google Cloud team reached out to us to offer support, and we saw significant alignment between the platform and the direction our partners and business were headed," Slocum says.
The Google Cloud team matched OneUnited with an implementation partner to establish the bank's Google Cloud account and integrate its existing on-premises Active Directory services. This involved synchronizing its user directory structure with Google Cloud and setting up cloud repositories for Terraform and CI/CD pipelines, laying the foundation for an integrated cloud framework.
The Google Cloud team reached out to us to offer support, and we saw significant alignment between the platform and the direction our partners and business were headed.
James Slocum
CIO, OneUnited Bank
The partner also helped migrate OneUnited's public website to Cloud Run and set up a real-time integration with OneUnited's core systems and on-premises data centers. This established a methodology for migrating other services to the cloud and was a core building block for seamlessly connecting the bank’s online and mobile experiences.
Elevating customer experiences with integrated solutions
OneUnited's significant growth in 2020 also brought increasing pressure on the organization to improve its service standard. With its existing phone system and customer support processes, there was no way to identify the intent of each caller and route calls appropriately, which meant customers endured long wait times and often had to repeat themselves at each touchpoint. Meanwhile, customer support agents lacked context into customer interactions, and it could take four to six weeks to onboard new agents.
CCAI and Dialogflow bring all the magic pieces together and allow us to serve customers in ways we never could have before.
James Slocum
CIO, OneUnited Bank
Working with UJET, a Google Cloud partner that delivers mobile-first CX solutions, OneUnited deployed Contact Center AI (CCAI), a Contact Center as a Service platform from Google Cloud that elevates customer experience, empowers agents, and automates customer support workflows. The UJET team also built custom conversational AI agents with Dialogflow to help OneUnited better understand caller intent and send them to the best customer support person for their needs.
With CCAI, OneUnited has gained comprehensive insight into customer interactions. The platform's direct integration with Salesforce, the bank's CRM of choice, automates customer authentication and gives contact center agents all historical context, improving resolution times, routing processes, and customer satisfaction. CCAI has helped reduce the average call time from six minutes to four minutes and agent onboarding time to as little as one week.
"CCAI and Dialogflow bring all the magic pieces together and allow us to serve customers in ways we never could have before," Slocum explains.
Automating API connections with Apigee and Application Integration
OneUnited Bank relies on partnerships and API integrations to power its online and mobile banking framework. However, the bank wanted to move away from writing point-to-point connections for each integration and create a reusable system for plugging into enterprise partner solutions.
"As a digital bank, our mobile app is the most important avenue for people to access our services," Slocum explains. "In order to build out the rich, clean experiences that people expect, we need to bring the backend systems that have historically been locked away into our application in a secure and robust way."
OneUnited evaluated several API management tools, ultimately choosing Apigee from Google Cloud for its seamless integration across Google Cloud services and its ability to speed up development with Gemini Code Assist. "The ability to integrate Gemini for AI-driven mapping within our workflows, during both the initial design phase and at each individual step, was a key factor in our decision to work with Google Cloud," says Slocum.
For phase one of this implementation, OneUnited is focused on implementing Apigee to authenticate its mobile application, which will enable the bank to securely access API endpoints and drive core mobile app features. The bank will also unify its CRM data using Salesforce connectors through Application Integration, a Google Cloud solution that offers low-code and pre-built options for connecting to Google Cloud and third-party apps. This will ultimately enhance customer relationship management, automate internal processes, and improve developer productivity.
Using Apigee and Application Integration together will also establish connectivity to OneUnited's core banking APIs through its existing Google Cloud connection to its on-premises systems.
The ability to integrate Gemini for AI-driven mapping within our workflows, during both the initial design phase and at each individual step, was a key factor in our decision to work with Google Cloud.
James Slocum
CIO, OneUnited Bank
This reusable, scalable framework will connect OneUnited's mobile app screens directly to Apigee, giving OneUnited more control over the user interface and supporting a more seamless user experience across touchpoints. Essentially, Apigee will act as the front door for OneUnited's APIs, while Application Integration will handle data transformation on the backend. As Slocum says, "Apigee will put us in a position to write our own destiny inside our mobile app."
Automating critical workflows across the organization with Gemini
We're feeling the impact of Google Cloud and Gemini around the entire organization. People are thinking differently about problems, which helps us do more as a business and for our customers. With Google Cloud, we're always in a place where we can change and grow for the better.
James Slocum
CIO, OneUnited Bank
As OneUnited continues on its Google Cloud roadmap, more teams are integrating Gemini into their workflows through Application Integration and Vertex AI. Beyond accelerating application development and code writing processes, this has been particularly impactful for fraud detection by helping teams recognize, mitigate, and understand fraud patterns.
For example, when a customer dispute is logged in Salesforce, it triggers an Application Integration workflow that sends customer and dispute data to Gemini through Vertex AI. Gemini analyzes the data to identify patterns that indicate fraud, such as repeated small-dollar disputes or discrepancies in transaction details. This analysis is written back to the dispute case in Salesforce, providing the loss mitigation team with a comprehensive risk assessment. Empowered with these insights, teams can intervene earlier when patterns arise to prevent fraudulent activity.
"We're feeling the impact of Google Cloud and Gemini around the entire organization," Slocum says. "People are thinking differently about problems, which helps us do more as a business and for our customers. With Google Cloud, we're always in a place where we can change and grow for the better."
OneUnited Bank is proud to be the first Black internet bank and the largest Black owned bank in the country, with offices in Los Angeles, Boston, and Miami. OneUnited Bank believes in serving the needs of urban communities that today are more diverse than at any time in history. Their community development lending has enabled them to be awarded the highest Bank Enterprise Award by the US Department of Treasury ten times. OneUnited Bank is also a designated Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI).
Industry: Financial Services
Location: United States
Products: Apigee, Application Integration, Contact Center AI, Gemini, Vertex AI
