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Financial institutions find new ways to reach consumers

Winds of change have blown through brick and mortar stores, restaurants…and financial institutions. In case you missed it, the disruption of traditional bank and credit union branches already happened—it’s just working its way out from the early adopters to the rest of the industry.

Branches still dominate many service and consumer categories, and it’s hard to beat them for building personal loyalty. But branches are disappearing at a steady rate, driven by institutions’ need for cost efficiency in the face of slow deposit growth, and consumers’ demand for greater self-service convenience.

The question is this: if higher employment rates, real wages and interest rates stimulate new deposit competition, where will it go? Maybe everywhere. Ideas and strategies abound for transforming both physical and virtual consumer experiences—from lobby-cafes with roaming staff, to distributed video interactive teller machines (ITMs), to expanded online and mobile banking.