Digital Banking
How consumers relate to their financial institution — trust, engagement, and the behavioral gap between product design intent and actual usage patterns in deposits and savings.
Breaking down how financial institutions and the world's most successful businesses are built — the strategy, the customer behavior, and why some win.
From bank earnings and payments strategy to the business models behind the world's most successful companies — connecting strategy, customer behavior, and the decisions that separate winners from everyone else.
Most fintech problems aren't technical. They're behavioral.
Research Focus
Four domains.
One through-line.
Every engagement traces back to a core conviction: the hardest problems in fintech are behavioral, not technical.
Money Movement
The architecture and friction of payments: ACH, Zelle, wire, RDC, bill pay — and how velocity limits, UX design, and fraud signals interact with consumer confidence.
Product Strategy
Translating market signals and behavioral data into product roadmap decisions — frameworks for prioritization, vendor evaluation, and executive alignment in financial services.
Consumer Financial Behavior
The psychological and structural factors shaping how people save, spend, and move money — applied to product design and financial health program development.
Recent Research
Q1 2026 Banking Earnings: What the Numbers Are Really Saying
Q1 2026 delivered blockbuster results at the top of the industry — with important fault lines running underneath.
Q4 2025 Banking Earnings: The Industry Closes a Monster Year
The biggest banks closed a historic 2025 — but the quarterly details reveal a more nuanced picture heading into the new year.
Experience
Product & Strategy — Consumer Banking
Charlotte, NC- Led go-to-market strategy for Ally's flagship Savings Buckets product, scaling balances significantly through targeted merchandising, pricing optimization, and digital feature launches — anchoring Ally's shift from rate-dependent to feature-led member acquisition.
- Delivered measurable deposit strategy outcomes including cost of funds reduction, NIM improvement, and a favorable deposit beta, providing leadership with a resilient, rate-insensitive funding base during periods of significant macro disruption.
- Owned product strategy end-to-end for Savings Buckets, Budgeting, Subscription Management, and Credit Monitoring — driving strong balance retention and primacy conversion for Ally's highest-value customer segment.
- Built and deployed an in-house AI/ML model for a flagship consumer savings feature, replacing a third-party vendor solution and generating significant annual cost savings — recognized as one of the division's top wins of the year.
- Served as Responsible Owner for five strategic fintech vendor partnerships (Fiserv, Plaid, MX, Equifax, Array), negotiating meaningful savings across a multi-year contract portfolio.
- Led and developed direct reports across multiple team configurations while directing 20+ cross-functional partners across Marketing, Technology, Risk, Analytics, and Pricing.
Consultant — Federal Strategy Consulting
Washington, DC- Led large-scale digital transformation programs for the Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense, designing strategic roadmaps that modernized federal digital services for millions of veterans and active-duty personnel.
- Managed complex, multi-stakeholder program environments — translating ambiguous policy mandates into actionable product and technology strategies across IT, compliance, legal, and operations.
- Developed frameworks for program governance, performance measurement, OKR alignment, and change management in high-compliance, mission-critical technology contexts.
- Managed a cross-functional delivery team producing C-suite and senior federal official briefings under tight timelines and high-stakes conditions.
Analyst — Strategy Consulting
Washington, DC- Built analytical models to assess healthcare cost and utilization trends, informing pricing strategy and product positioning decisions across regional client portfolios.
- Partnered with actuaries and product teams to translate complex data insights into strategic recommendations, presenting findings to senior leadership to guide planning and cost containment initiatives.
- Recruited directly by Booz Allen Hamilton following a subcontract engagement on a large-scale federal program, where performance led to a full-time offer.
About
The hardest problems
are behavioral,
not technical.
I'm a product and strategy operator focused on how financial systems actually work—across banking, payments, and consumer behavior.
Over the past 8+ years at Ally and Booz Allen, I've worked across product development, financial modeling, and strategy. That's meant building features, shaping pricing and deposit strategies, working with vendors, and helping translate complex ideas into decisions that actually ship.
This site is where I break down what I'm seeing—across earnings, product design, and how customers really use money. What's working, what's not, and where the industry is heading.
Banks and fintechs are building increasingly sophisticated technology, but the gap between product capability and how people actually behave remains wide.
Closing that gap isn't an engineering problem. It's a behavioral one.
Whether it's a product audit, a market breakdown, or a company deep dive, the goal is the same: connect strategy to real-world behavior—and make it useful.
Outside of work, I spend most of my time outside—hiking, skiing, or planning the next trip. I've played guitar for years, love to cook, and will take any excuse to get in the water. I also have a dog who keeps things interesting.
Working principles
- Empathy first.
- Product decisions that ignore how people actually relate to money tend to fail quietly. Start with the human.
- Strategy without narrative is just a spreadsheet.
- The work has to translate—to executives, partners, and product teams. If it doesn't land, it doesn't matter.
- Complexity is a design failure.
- The best financial products feel obvious in hindsight. That usually comes from removing, not adding.
- Progress happens when empathy meets execution.
- Ideas are easy. Turning insight into something that ships—and works—is the job.
Research coverage
Southeast
- CharlotteNC
- TampaFL
Mid-Atlantic
- WashingtonDC
- RichmondVA
- Virginia BeachVA
Connect
Start a
conversation.
Whether you're exploring a research engagement, a strategy collaboration, or simply want to trade notes on what's happening in fintech and payments — the best place to start is a direct message on LinkedIn.
Based in Charlotte, NC. Open to remote and in-person engagements.
LinkedIn Message directly — preferred channel for new conversations
→ Email richard.perry@alumni.unc.edu
→ Open to conversations on
- Research & analysis engagements
- Product strategy advisory
- Fintech market briefs
- Speaking & panel participation
- Consulting partnerships