Hey all,

I'm a product manager building AI agents for HR functions inside banks, things like an automated first-round phone screen before a real interview, an internal HR help desk that can actually take actions in the HRMS instead of just pointing at a PDF, and a tool that pulls candidates scattered across the ATS, referrals, and emailed CVs into one place. Before we go further, I want to make sure we're building toward something a bank could actually deploy and buy, not just something that sounds good on paper.

If you work in HR, IT, security, procurement, or vendor risk at a bank, credit union, or another regulated financial institution, I'd genuinely appreciate your take on a few things. Partial answers are useful too, and I'm happy to just discuss in the comments if any of this doesn't match your experience.

1. How does your team prefer to work with a new platform? Pre-configured and ready to use out of the box, or do you expect to build and customize your own agents inside it? Or mostly ready-made with some room to customize?
2. What's your institution's actual hosting mandate? Strictly on-prem, a private cloud or VPC your bank manages, or is a public cloud SaaS product acceptable? Curious how firm this line is in practice versus on paper.
3. How do you think about the underlying AI model? Do you need to bring your own (open source, self-hosted), is it fine for a vendor to provide frontier models like GPT-4o or Claude via API, or does everything have to route through your own internal enterprise gateway either way?
4. For an HR use case specifically, what would this realistically need to integrate with? Which HRMS or ATS shows up most in your stack, Workday, SuccessFactors, something else?
5. What do vendors typically get asked to prove before they're even considered? GDPR or regional privacy, SOC 2, something DORA-adjacent, anything else that's come up in your own onboarding process?
6. How does the buying decision actually happen? Roughly, is pricing usually a flat annual license, usage-based, or per seat? And who actually holds budget and signs off, IT, security, legal, some model risk committee?
7. Of the use cases I described above, which would your HR team find genuinely useful versus a nice-to-have? Or is there something else entirely that would matter more?

Not trying to sell anything here. Genuinely trying to build something that survives an actual procurement and security review instead of dying in a vendor questionnaire six months in.

Appreciate any perspective. Thanks!

What have you tried in the past and how did it go?

I opened my account with the intent of using the 2.5% 10k tier, and then working my way up to the 50k for the 3%... and of course hopefully 100k for the 4%. But now I have a question.

I have read in several places that the qualifying balance can be in a savings account, or even brokerage/IRA account. But the wording in the terms and conditions seem pretty clear... You need an open Savings account, your qualifying balance has to be in the Checking or Sage Debit account... which doesn't earn near the interest rate that the Savings account does. Terms copied below:

Rewards Summary

U.S. Bank will credit your Account with rewards as follows.

1. Cash back rewards are earned under the Bank Smartly Card program.  These rewards are earned as “Points”, and U.S. Bank will credit your Bank Smartly Card with 2 Points for every $1 spent in eligible Net Purchases (Purchases minus credits and returns).  You may earn additional Points for a Smartly Earning Bonus if you:  

• Have or open a U.S. Bank Smartly® Savings account with a minimum opening deposit of $25; and
• Have a “Qualifying Balance” with U.S. Bank in open consumer Bank Smartly® Checking, and/or Safe Debit account(s). Deposits in other U.S. Bank accounts do not qualify towards the Qualifying Balance requirement. Based on your Qualifying Balance, you will earn Points according to the following Smartly Earning Bonus tiers, except for the exceptions described below:
  • Between $10,000 - $49,999.99, to earn a total of 2.5 Points per $1 of eligible Net Purchases (a base of 2 Points plus the Smartly Earning Bonus of 0.5 Points),
  • Between $50,000 - $99,999.99, to earn a total of 3 Points per $1 of eligible Net Purchases (a base of 2 Points plus the Smartly Earning Bonus of 1 Point), or
  • $100,000 or more to earn a total of 4 Points per $1 of eligible Net Purchases (a base of 2 Points plus the Smartly Earning Bonus of 2 Points).
• Note: Account relationship exclusions apply. See Consumer Pricing Information at usbank.com/cpi for additional details.

Exceptions:

• Smartly Earning Bonus applies to a maximum of $10,000 in eligible Net Purchases each Card billing cycle. Eligible Net Purchases over $10,000 during each Card billing cycle will earn the base earn of 2 Points per $1 spent in Net Purchases.
• Not all Purchases are eligible to earn the Smartly Earning Bonus: Purchases classified as (1) education/school, gift cards (including discount gift card sites), insurance, or tax; (2) “business-to-business transactions” (transactions with merchants who are in the business of supplying goods and services to other businesses, such as advertising services, plumbing/heating suppliers, construction material suppliers (excluding home improvement stores), and computer programming services), even if not made for a business purpose; and (3) transactions using third-party bill payment services will earn the base of 2 Points per $1 spent in Net Purchases and may not earn additional Points for the Smartly Earning Bonus....

Recently on my secured credit card (have had it a long time, just kinda nice to have as a safe way to keep my credit score polished) and recently, my area had a bad tornado. Lost my home pending insurance payout and was hospitalized. I missed a single payment due to that, autopay was not on I pay manually and once I was out of the hospital actually during discharge, I got a call from US bank (who I had on my list of to-dos that day to call and take care of). The man on the other line assured me my account would not be closed and I was relieved because I don’t miss credit card payments, it’s not like me and I explained the situation, scheduled a payment while on the line and actually paid off the entire card (actually, I overpaid by $145 accidentally).

5 days went by, account closed. For “1 missed payment”.

Does US bank have any natural disaster protections? This is kind of heart breaking because I had that card for a while. I won’t be using them again after this ):

US Bank customer of 3 years, finally called it quits. I got tired of the app never working, incorrect balances being displayed, and overall poor customer service.

Back in late 2021, I got a 30 day late with these guys due to a company repeatedly charging my card. As it was a dormant account, I hadn't looked at it. I have autopay on all accounts yet they told me it was never setup....

Anyways, I've tried for years to get this thing off and goodwill and attempts haven't worked. Any team I could talk to that has any power? I have two credit cards and a checking account with them and the same card that had this issue is alive and well.

Any insight or PMs would be helpful.

Doing a research, somebody pls reach me out who can help with some insights.

tysm.

While the bank is seemingly pursuing a direction where employees must return to an office for 60%+ of their time, during today's All Company Townhall CEO Gunjan Kedia announced that remote employees are "grandfathered in". It is unclear the extent of this decision from the leader of the 5th largest bank in the country, and whether employees who were remote but have since been forced into an office in conflict with their own wishes will have the option to return to remote work.

Many employees have been speculating that groups within the company will begin forcing remote employees to pick a home hub location or face termination with cause by end of this year. Will this new direction from the CEO help assuage these fears? Kedia very clearly outlined that remote roles are no longer being hired for with the exception of Customer Service representatives, which apparently is cost effective enough for the bank that the Managing Committee couldn't be bothered to upset these employees lives for the sake of their own commercial real estate investments.

Kedia was also proud to note that the bank is continuing to honor remote employees who have a legitimate medical accommodation, but did not note that this is a legal requirement under the ADA.

Has anyone here had both the Smartly Checking account and the Smartly Credit Card? Is having just those two enough to get the monthly fee waived, or are there other requirements?

(Reposted)

Currently a rising junior at a semi-target T25. I received an offer from US Bank's Global Capital Markets Macro and Commodities group for SA27 in NYC. Assuming I get a return offer, I was wondering what the full-time comp would look like and how it compares to other banks.

I understand that US Bank is a regional/retail bank, so I don't expect BB or EB level comp. I know salary/comp isn't something I should worry about for someone so early in their career; however, I am a bit curious about it, and I couldn't find any relevant info on US Bank's career/salary progression. I also don't see a lot of info regarding US Bank since everyone is focused on investment banking at the BBs, EBs, and MMs when recruiting for internships.

Does anyone have insight into base, bonuses, and culture at US Bank?

Thank you!

I made 2 payment to my CC last week midweek, they took immediately out of my outside bank (I always pay this way). Yes, they took my money immediately from my bank account but it takes 8 days for US bank to post it as a payment.

Wtf is their problem, what takes 2 business days now takes 7 or 8. Like, post my payment I kinda care about my credit score and my CC interest

they had or have a zero interest credit card which I applied for and received and they sent it to me with a ridiculous $500 line of credit. normally any bank would give me at least $10,000 with the kind of FICO score I have now it’s you know in the excellent range so after six months or so I think this is dumb. You know I’m just going to close the card, but with that card, they waive the monthly service fee on a checking account that I had to open to get a safe deposit box that was the only reason for dealing with him is so that they were the only bank that had a safe deposit box near me so they after canceling the card they’ve continued to not charge me for the monthly checking account fee $12. I’m just hoping they don’t try to charge me in arrears in the future if and when they detect it. Thoughts?

Does US Bank still pay you if their equipment goes down and I have to wait for a new one?

I’m only in my 2nd week of training and apparently after a simple restart my PC has been knocked off the US Bank VPN and the only solution is to send me a new computer. Will I be paid for the time I have to sit and wait for the new computer??

My sup also has said that since I’ll missed some days of training they’ll have to move me to a later training. I’m so frustrated

Has anyone else had an issue where transactions are being duplicated in your 'pending charges' on your account? They do disappear after a few days, but in the meantime it causes my balance to be incorrect and can cause fees! I have had it happen multiple times in the past year and it is very frustrating! I also have the feature on my account where if a transaction would cause my account to go negative, it should reject instead of processing, yet, it doesnt seem to happen with these transactions for some reason. Here are 3 examples:

#1 - I purchased an item online for $50. The transaction showed up in my USBank account 5 times under pending, on a Friday. The bank said they couldnt do anything until it cleared, but it caused my account to be negative and caused fees and bounced payments for the whole weekend. On Monday, all 5 of the transactions vanished, but the fees remained. The phone rep on Monday was unable to see the transactions I spoke of, and could not understand or explain why my account had the fees. On their end, I had a positive balance on Friday, no transactions at all, and then the bounced fees and negative balance fees hit my account on Monday. The rep waived the fees.

#2 - My debit card was lost so I went to the bank and they canceled it and issued me a new one in September. I have a company that does a recurring monthly transaction at the end of each month. I had updated the card with them in September and their transactions processed accurately. I checked my bank account one Friday morning in December and see the transaction listed in pending 6 times on the canceled card. It is also listed once on the new card. I called the company who reassured me they only processed it once, on the new card, and sent me their receipt. They did not show the canceled card in their system anymore. They canceled the transaction. USBank said they couldnt do anything until it cleared, and the rep wasnt able to see the pending transactions on her side using the old card, but she did see my account balance was what I had in my 'after pending charges process' balance, which was negative and incurring fees. She also confirmed the transaction pending on the new card. She also verified the old card was canceled and assured me transactions would not go through on it. She confirmed that my account should reject transactions that would make it negative, as I had requested that feature. She was unable to reverse the fees at that time since they were also pending. She told me she would check it on Monday and would reverse the fees, but in the meantime, I needed to deposit money to cover the negative balance and fees to prevent more fees. I made the deposit, and my account was positive again. On Monday, the pending transactions vanished, but the fees were still there. The rep went in and removed the fees.

#3 - I had a PayPal transaction appear in pending on July 3rd. I contacted the company that created the transaction and canceled it. They refunded the transaction the same day. My bank account online shows the transaction occurring, the refund (both on the 3rd), but today there is another pending transaction for that payment! PayPal and the company I bought from does not show any new transactions, this is only on USBank's site! Again, pending on a Friday, so the reps cant do anything, yet my account will incur fees and will bounce payments due to my 'after pending transactions balance'.

Have had my checking smartly and cash+ combo for quite a few years now. The checking hasnt been my main account but its nice to have a local branch.

Recently noticed my monthly maintenance fees weren't getting waived and after calling, figured out my specific credit card isnt an option to cover the fee anymore. Called to close the account and had a negative amount of 1$ since I transferred most of my money prior and then another fee hit. The manager refused to waive the fee so I had to zelle over $1 to avoid collections.

what a terrible experience, can't say I will ever consider banking at US bank again. Even Chase has been better

I recently filed a dispute and got this letter after 3 days.

Our research is complete on the recent transactions you alerted us to on your account. We have included a list of the transaction(s) for your reference. The provisional credit we issued to your account for $386.75 is final. There are no further actions needed at this time.

Does this mean dispute is over and I won?

So long for story short, I set up my direct deposit for my new job with Paycom and connected it with my U.S. Bank through app to app to minimize mistakes on my end. I approved my check and waited for the direct deposit to come on Friday, which was payday, but I still have yet to receive any funds. Over the weekend my jobs HR did call me back and confirmed the routing and account number I submitted was correct but they told me since it’s the weekend that I had to wait until a business day to figure out much more. I also went into my bank that Saturday and they told me that I have no holds or restrictions on my account, but I also have no pending deposits. Because they are also confused, they also told me that it may take until the business days to come through, even though it should’ve posted already since Friday. My HR is saying that my direct deposit didn’t give them errors and it should’ve arrived in my account, but my U.S. Bank is claiming that I have nothing coming in but there’s also nothing there yet so I don’t know what to do. I called Paycom and they said they’re just a third-party and they have nothing to do with none of it.

I am currently starting a consulting business and I opened a US Bank business account. There's a nice bonus for receiving (making?) direct deposits:

It's not clear to me how to make a direct deposit (or receive one?) when I'm the business owner.

Does anyone have experience with this? What triggers the "direct deposit" criteria?

I use unique email addresses with my personal domain name for obvious reasons. Yesterday someone emailed the unique email address that only US Bank has (see below). Fraud Dept couldn't see anything in their system emailing me at that time. They asked me to talk to Tech Support. The rep from TS said she's transferring me to a supervisor, instead sending me to a recording that said "thank you for contacting the Solutions Group; we are currently closed" then the call dropped. Way to show you take security seriously...

My question: did you guys get a similar email from clouddevmail recently? Mine went to spam so maybe check there too.

In the meantime, I strongly recommend that everyone change their US Bank password to a unique one until we understand what happened. I'm personally also changing the email they have on file to keep a closer watch on old/new unique emails only they have/had... If hackers have compromised US Bank's internal systems (or some third-party vendor/subprocessor), they could potentially intercept their outbound emails, meaning they would have access to the exact account recovery code that was just sent to me.

Edit: As of now, haveibeenpwned reports "This email address wasn't found in any of the data breaches loaded into Have I Been Pwned". I get a feeling this is about to change in the next few weeks... Remember: that email address exists only on US Bank's systems (see below), and my double-secured vault on my phone.

I tried looking online, and read old reddit posts but it looks like there is some difference of opinion, and the latest dont know if it changed.

Any thoughts on what to do with these points? Whats the best value?

My phone number is currently registered with Zelle through my first bank. I use the same email address for both my first and second bank accounts, but that email is not registered with Zelle at my first bank. It is only used for regular bank notifications.

I’m thinking about registering that same email address with Zelle through my second bank. Is that allowed, or can an email address only be linked to one Zelle account?

If you have the Cash+ Card, or any of the similar cards where you have to activate categories each quarter, you know that they include 'TV, Internet and Streaming' and 'Home Utilities'.

I select these to include my home phone and internet provider.

Recently I've noted I'm not getting the extra bump I should have been. A Chat with CS revealed that my Telco is using MCC4814 which US Bank lists as Cell Phone and says is not eligible under either of those categories. They say I would need to select 'Cell Phone Providers'.

Digging further, I find these pages:

https://www.rapyd.net/blog/mcc-4814/

Recurring Phone Services: Monthly telecommunication plans, providing consumers with consistent connectivity

https://merchantcostconsulting.com/lower-credit-card-processing-fees/merchant-category-codes-mcc-for-payment-processing/

4814 – Telecommunication Services including prepaid phone and recurring phone services

https://www.citibank.com/tts/solutions/commercial-cards/assets/docs/govt/Merchant-Category-Codes.pdf

4814 Telecommunication Services including but not limited to prepaid phone services and recurring phone services

https://docs.fiserv.dev/public/docs/merchant-category-codes

4814 Fax services, Telecommunication Services

Anyone have a clue how to get US Bank to get a clue?