Delivery: My Way or the Highway

Millennials cast their vote for omni-channel delivery.

 By Andrew Tilbury

Sponsored by Bluepoint Solutions

Members, especially the coveted Millennials, want financial services delivered to them “where” and when they want them—whether that’s in a branch, via their laptop or tablet, on their smartphone, or (soon) on their wrist. This has serious implications for credit unions of all sizes and will undoubtedly favor those who are innovating in delivery channels for their members.

It also looks like we are looking at new shifts involving tablets. A 2014 report from Javelin Strategy and Research predicts that 138 million adults will access their financial accounts through tablets by 2018. Notably, Javelin believes that financial institutions are not well prepared for the tablet boom, and that they must strive to provide robust tablet banking apps, especially for the complex Android market.

Indeed, areas of rapid growth in service delivery right now include mobile and social media-based banking, according to our latest report, Disruption in Financial Services: Threats and Opportunities. The report indicates 72 percent of Millennials are active users of mobile banking. Additionally, the report notes that while online banking usage has remained relatively constant over the past three years, mobile banking has nearly doubled.

So what does this preference for omni-channel delivery mean for credit union technology spending? It means you must spend wisely on a wide variety of delivery systems.

Results from another study—our 2014 State of Enterprise Content Management in Credit Unions—indicate that mobile-deployed self-service products continue to be a focus of new technology spending among credit unions, with about two-thirds (66 percent) of the 199 respondents interested in enabling members to gain access to their member financial documents via online and mobile self-service channels.

But at the same time, we also found that more than half of respondents (56.3 percent) are considering installing iPads for member-facing activities in branches, where highly trained member service staff members can assist members—and do valuable cross selling.

In all, members want access to more information and financial documents than ever before, regardless of which channels they prefer to use, from wherever they are. If credit unions can invest wisely in everything from core systems to online banking platforms to enterprise content management solutions to mobile apps to branch automation tools, they’ll stand to benefit.

For example, according to a report from Callahan & Associates, heavy digital users are more loyal to their financial institutions and, on average, use more products from digital-savvy credit unions.

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