Unlocking 35% More Value With Emotional, Community-Focused Branding

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Effective strategy leverage branding and marketing to make an emotional connection with your audience. Research shows your financial brand will have a 35% higher lifetime value if it makes an emotional connection. That’s 35% more value — not from technology, rates or even the customer journey. Just from branding. It’s that powerful and should be central to your bank’s strategic plans.

According to analytics platform FICO, 52% of consumers are more likely to open an online bank account than before the Covid-19 pandemic; Forbes notes that nearly eight in 10 consumers now prefer to bank digitally. Those numbers can’t be ignored in your strategic branding plan.

To stay competitive and release untapped opportunities, forward-thinking financial leaders are introducing incremental innovations that can bring updated tools and efficiencies to market quickly. They are also entering niche markets and offering targeted niche products and services for specific communities, along with tailored branding that helps deliver sizeable results.

Redefine Community With Real Client Data
Community is no longer a physical construct. Banks can take advantage of this by bringing new products to market that serve specifically defined communities with branding that galvanizes these customers to action. Niche financial products and brands resonate in groups defined by their profession, culture, passion or any other identify demarcations.

To help identify a customer segment that’s a natural fit for your financial institution, first consider your own analytics. Often, incisive data analysis can reveal patterns like a high concentration of consumers in particular fields or stages of life that can benefit from tailored services that your institution can provide.

Leverage Niches to Your Advantage
More than a few community banks have chosen to invest in niche opportunities, from full-service banking experiences to bespoke products that serve specific needs. For example, Greenwood, an offering from Coastal Community Bank, a $3.1 billion bank based in Everett, Washington, is tailored for customers who identify as members of the African American and Latinx communities or seek to support them.

Greenwood’s “financial movement” offers incentives such as automated meal donations linked to account creation, spare change round-ups that benefit charities and monthly small business grants to Black- and Latinx-owned businesses. This community reinvestment, combined with personal financial education tools and requisite security and convenience, makes for a powerful branding package to Greenwood’s audience.

Watseka, Illinois-based IF Bancorp launched Hitched in 2021, marketing its digital brand to help newlyweds build shared financial strength. Solutions such as shared savings, collaborative goal setting and financial education for couples help this unique community of consumers build their financial future together. Hitched partnered with popular wedding sites like WeddingWire and leveraged bold, eye-catching design to make a splash as a new banking brand.

To appeal to young Generation Z consumers, Holyoke, Massachusetts-based PeoplesBank developed ZYNLO,. ZYNLO offers mobile-optimized account opening, early access to direct-deposited paychecks, daily balance alerts and 24/7 customer support. To market these offerings, ZYNLO partnered with social media influencers in home renovation, dining out and finance for endorsements that resonated with young consumers.

Try All Ideas, Big and Small
Finding your bank’s niche does not have to mean fully reinventing your brand. Financial brands that identify niche markets can start building brand loyalty by providing new, digital solutions to their shared problems. Transformation can start with something as simple as one new or reimagined service, branded for a specific community. Implementing micro-innovations to serve them can power change for now and beyond.

As financial institutions look to modernize their decision-making processes and build strong brands, it’s important to consider the evolving concept of community in the digital age. By identifying and targeting specific groups of consumers with tailored services and branding, financial brands can build relationships and drive growth in the digital marketplace.

It’s not necessary to reinvent the wheel to appeal to niche customers. But it is necessary to understand their needs and provide functional solutions. Start by solving their biggest problem and delighting them with services that speak to them with ongoing micro-innovations that reinforce loyalty to your brand.

Banks Are Letting Deposits Run Off, but for How Long?

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In September, the CEO of Fifth Third Bancorp, Tim Spence, said something at the Barclays investor conference that might have seemed astonishing at another time. The Cincinnati, Ohio-based bank was letting $10 billion simply roll off its balance sheet in the first half of the year, an amount the CEO described as “surge” deposits.

In an age when banks are awash in liquidity, many of them are happily waving goodbye to some amount of their deposits, which appear as a liability on the balance sheet, not an asset.
Like Fifth Third, banks overall have been slow to raise interest rates on deposits, feeling no urgency to keep up with the Federal Reserve’s substantial interest rate hikes this year.

Evidence suggests that deposits have begun to leave the banking system. That may not be such a bad thing. But bank management teams should carefully assess their deposit strategies as interest rates rise, ensuring they don’t become complacent after years of near zero interest rates. “Many bankers lack meaningful, what I would call meaningful, game plans,” says Matt Pieniazek, president and CEO of Darling Consulting Group, which advises banks on balance sheet management.

In recent years, that critique hasn’t been an issue — but that could change. As of the week of Oct. 5, deposits in the banking system dipped to $17.77 trillion, down from $18.07 trillion in August, according to the Federal Reserve. Through the first half of the year, mid-sized banks with $10 billion to $60 billion in assets lost 2% to 3% of their deposits, according to Fitch Ratings Associate Director Brian Thies.

This doesn’t worry Fitch Ratings’ Managing Director for the North American banking team, Christopher Wolfe. Banks added about $9.2 trillion in deposits during the last decade, according to FDIC data. Wolfe characterizes these liquidity levels as “historic.”

“So far, we haven’t seen drastic changes in liquidity,” he says.

In other words, there’s still a lot of wiggle room for most banks. Banks can use deposits to fund loan growth, but so far, deposits far exceed loans. Loan-to-deposit ratios have been falling, reaching a historic low in recent years. The 20-year average loan-to-deposit ratio was 81%, according to Fitch Ratings. In the second quarter of 2022, it was 59.26%, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

In September, the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors enacted its third consecutive 75 basis point hike to fight raging inflation — bringing the fed funds target rate range to 3% to 3.25%. Banks showed no signs of matching the aggressive rate hikes. The median deposit betas, a figure that shows how sensitive banks are to rising rates, came in at 2% through June of this year, according to Thies. That’s a good thing: The longer banks can hold off on raising deposit rates while variable rate loans rise, the more profitable they become.

But competitors to traditional brick-and-mortar banks, such as online banks and broker-dealers, have been raising rates to attract deposits, Pieniazek says. Many depositors also have figured out they can get a short-term Treasury bill with a yield of about 4%. “You’re starting to see broker-dealers and money management firms … promot[e] insured CDs with 4% [rates],” he says. “The delta between what banks are paying on deposits and what’s available in the market is the widest in modern banking history.”

The question for management teams is how long will this trend last? The industry has enjoyed a steady increase in noninterest-bearing deposits over the years, which has allowed them to lower their overall funding costs. In the fourth quarter of 2019, just 13.7% of deposits were noninterest bearing; that rose to 25.8% in the second quarter of 2021, according to Fitch. There’s a certain amount of money sitting in bank coffers that hasn’t left to chase higher-yielding investments because few alternatives existed. How much of that money could leave the bank’s coffers, and when?

Pieniazek encourages bank boards and management teams to discuss how much in deposits the bank is willing to lose. And if the bank starts to see more loss than that, what’s Plan B? These aren’t easy questions to answer. “Why would you want to fly blind and see what happens?” Pieniazek asks.

What sort of deposits is the bank willing to lose? What’s the strategy for keeping core deposits, the industry term for “sticky” money that likely won’t leave the bank chasing rates? Pieniazek suggests analyzing past data to see what happened when interest rates rose and making some predictions based on that. How long will the excess liquidity stick around? Will it be a few months? A few years? He also suggests keeping track of important, large deposit relationships and deciding in what circumstances the bank will raise rates to keep those funds. And what should tellers and other bank employees say when customers start demanding higher rates?

For its part, Fifth Third has been working hard in recent years to ensure it has a solid base of core deposits and a disciplined pricing strategy that will keep rising rates from leading to drastically higher funding costs. It’s been a long time since banking has been in this predicament. It’s anyone’s guess what happens next.

Capitalism with a Conscience

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In this edition of The Slant Podcast, Julieann Thurlow, CEO of the $691 million Reading Cooperative Bank in Massachusetts and vice chair of the American Bankers Association, discusses the bank’s new retail banking apprenticeship. Like many of its peers in the cooperative banking movement, Reading Cooperative is owned by its customers and was founded in 1886 primarily to help working families buy homes. And there are some interesting parallels between that mission and the work it’s doing today in the city of Lawrence. The bank has been on a years-long journey to establish a branch in Lawrence, where it will offer check cashing services as part of a broader appeal to the city’s unbanked.

This episode, and all past episodes of The Slant Podcast, are available on Bank Director, Spotify and Apple Music.

Modernizing Your Retail Banking Business

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The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the decline of traffic in most banks’ retail branches, leading many organizations to reexamine the cost of their branch services and the ultimate viability of their branch-based services. Bank boards and executive teams must address the changing operating risks in today’s retail banking environment and assess the potential strategic risks of both action and inaction.

Speculation about the impending death of branch banking is nothing new: industry observers have debated the topic for years. As customers have become more comfortable with online banking, banks experienced a sizeable drop in in-person transactions. Regulatory changes, social trends and the growth of fintech alternatives exacerbated this development, leading many banks to cut back or centralize various branch-based activities. Between June 2010 and year-end 2020, branch offices have decreased by more than 16,000, or 16.7%, according to a Crowe analysis of report from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

The pandemic also introduced important new challenges. Many banks had already shifted the focus in their branches, but greater consumer acceptance of remote and self-service options clouded the role of the branch even further. At the same time, pandemic relief programs produced a wave of liquidity, which hid or delayed the recognition of fundamental challenges many bankers expect to face: finding new ways to continue growing their core deposits at an acceptable cost.

So far, banks’ responses to these challenges have varied. Some banks — both large and small — have accelerated their branch closure plans. Others have notified regulators that they do not plan to reopen branches shuttered during lockdowns. But some banks actually are adding new offices as they reconfigure their retail banking strategies. What is the underlying strategic thinking when it comes to brick and mortar locations?

Developing and Executing an Effective Strategy

There is no one-size-fits-all approach, of course. Closing a majority of branches and becoming a digital-only organization is simply not appropriate for most banks. Nevertheless, many aspects of the physical model require innovation. Directors and executive teams can take several steps to successfully modernize their retail banking strategies.

  • Rethink branch cost and performance metrics. Banks use a variety of tools to attract deposits, sell products and build relationships, which means conventional performance metrics such as accounts or transactions per employee, cost per transaction or teller transaction times often are inadequate measurements.

A branch’s contribution also includes the visibility it provides as a billboard for the bank, access to and support for the specialized products and services it can deliver and the role it plays in establishing a community presence. Management teams need to develop tools to determine and measure the value of such contributions to the bank and its product lines, as well as their associated costs. Branches are long-term investments that require longer-term planning strategies and tactics.

  • Identify customer expectations. One factor contributing to the decline in foot traffic is what customers experience when they visit a branch. Although branch greeters can establish a welcoming atmosphere, such encounters often succeed only in a nice greeting — not necessarily in service.

Because customers can perform most banking business online, banks must ascertain why customers are visiting the branch — and then focus on meeting those needs. Ultimately, customers must leave the branch feeling fulfilled, having accomplished a transaction or task that would have been more difficult outside the branch.

  • Execute a coordinated digital strategy. Having a digital strategy means more than updating the bank’s website, streamlining its mobile banking interface or even partnering with a fintech to offer new digital products. Such catch-up activities might be necessary, but they no longer set a bank apart in today’s digital landscape or improve profitability and growth.

Beyond technology, banks should consider how their digital strategy and brand identity align and how that identity ties back to customers’ expectations. Traditionally, banks’ brand identities were linked to a specific geographic location or niche audiences, but brand identity also can reflect other communities or affinity groups or a particular service or product at which the bank is especially adept. This identity should be projected consistently throughout the customer experience, both digitally and in person.

Although most banks should not abandon their branches altogether, many will need to reevaluate their market approaches, compare opportunities for improved earnings performance and consider reimagining their value proposition for in-person services. Strategies will vary from one organization to the next, but those that succeed will share certain critical attributes — including a willingness to question conventional thinking and redeploy resources without hesitation.

Balance Sheet Opportunities Create Path to Outperformance

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How important is net interest margin (NIM) to your institution?

In 2019, banks nationally were 87% dependent on net interest income. With the lion’s share of earnings coming from NIM, implementing a disciplined approach around margin management will mean the difference between underperforming institutions and outperforming ones. (To see how your institution ranks versus national and in-state peers, click here.)

Anticipating the next steps a bank should take to protect or improve its profitability will become increasingly difficult as they manage balance sheet risks and margin pressure. Cash positions are growing with record deposit inflows, pricing on meager loan demand is ultra-competitive and many institutions are experiencing accelerated cash flows from investment portfolios.

It is also important to remember that stress testing the balance sheet is no longer an academic exercise. Beyond the risk management, stressing the durability of capital and resiliency of liquidity can give your institution the confidence necessary to execute on strategies to improve performance and to stay ahead of peers. It is of heightened importance to maintain focus on the four major balance sheet position discussed below.

Capital Assessment, Position
Capital serves as the cornerstone for all balance sheets, supporting growth, absorbing losses and providing resources to seize opportunities. Most importantly, capital serves as a last line of defense, protecting against risk of the known and the unknown.

The rapid changes occurring within the economy are not wholly cyclical in nature; rather, structural shifts will develop as consumer behavior evolves and business operations adjust to the ‘next normal.’ Knowing the breaking points for your capital base — in terms of growth, credit deterioration and a combination of these factors — will serve your institution well.

Liquidity Assessment, Position
Asset quality deterioration leads to capital erosion, which leads to liquidity evaporation. With institutions reporting record deposit growth and swelling cash balances, understanding how access to a variety of funding sources can change, given asset quality deterioration or capital pressure, is critical to evaluating the adequacy of your comprehensive liquidity position.

Interest Rate Risk Assessment, Position
In today’s ultra-low rate environment, pressure on earning asset yields is compounded by funding costs already nearing historically low levels. Excess cash is expensive; significant asset sensitivity represents an opportunity cost as the central bank forecasts a low-rate environment for the foreseeable future. Focus on adjusting your asset mix — not only to improve your earnings today, but to sustain it with higher, stable-earning asset yields over time.

Additionally, revisit critical model assumptions to ensure that your assumptions are reflective of actual pricing behaviors, including new volume rate floors and deposit betas, as they may be too high for certain categories.

Investment Assessment, Position
Strategies for investment portfolios including cash can make a meaningful contribution to your institution’s overall interest income. Some key considerations to help guide the investment process in today’s challenging environment include:

  • Cost of carrying excess cash has increased: Most institutions are now earning 0.1% or less on their overnight funds, but there are alternatives to increasing income on short-term liquidity.
  • Consider pre-investing: Many institutions have been very busy with Paycheck Protection Program loans, and we anticipate this will have a short-term impact on liquidity and resources. Currently, spreads are still attractive in select sectors of the market.

Taylor Advisors’ Take:
Moving into 2021, liquidity and capital are taking center stage in most community banks’ asset-liability committee discussions. Moving away from regulatory appeasement and towards proactive planning and decision-making are of paramount importance. This can start with upgrading your bank’s tools and policies, improving your ability to interpret and communicate the results and implementing actionable strategies.

Truly understanding your balance sheet positions is critical before implementing balance sheet management strategies. You must know where you are to know where you want to go. Start by studying your latest quarterly data. Dissect your NIM and understand why your earning asset yields are above or below peer. Balance sheet management is about driving unique strategies and tailored risk management practices to outperform; anything less will lead to sub-optimal results.

Banks, Fintechs Uniting for Bottom-Line Wins

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Banks have been losing consumer market share to fintechs for more than a decade. But in the middle of a pandemic, their focus has shifted to expediting consumer loan opportunities for balance sheet and bottom line wins. Why?

For one thing, deposit growth is well outpacing loan growth this year, according to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s Quarterly Banking Profile. At the same time, tech companies like Apple and Amazon.com are dipping their big toes into the consumer finance industry. With less of a need to focus on growing bank deposits and an ever-growing list of competitors entering the lending market, banks should take — and are taking — more-calculated risks to maintain their relevance with digitally savvy customers at their points of financial need. To connect with prospective customers where they want to be reached, banks will need to rely on partners that can help them scale their offerings in a fast, frictionless and secure manner.

The easiest way for banks to lower customer acquisition costs and reach more prospective customers with loan opportunities is to use relevant plug-and-play technologies from fintechs. It’s hardly a new concept at this point; most leading banks have already adopted this methodology as the way to unlock more revenue. Per the Global Fintech Report, 94% of financial services companies said they were confident that fintechs would help grow their company’s revenue over the next two years; 95% of technology companies said the same.

The banks struggling to justify the need to partner are missing the big picture: growth opportunities and low-hanging fruit. Take business clients as an example. Far too many banks wait for a business to become frustrated at competitors before competing to win their business. A fintech partnership can help banks go on the offensive and create a strategy that positions businesses as the face of financing by offering point-of-need lending to consumers, driving revenue for the business and improving the bottom line at the bank.

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” – American industrial and business magnate Henry Ford

Being open-minded about fintech partnerships allows banks to offer valuable and attractive services to business clients and consumers, especially at a time when both are faced with a life-altering pandemic and natural disasters. Consumers need quick access to credit at reasonable rates; in the face of excess liquidity from deposits and a continued low-rate environment, banks should be look to provide better loans for their customers than their online finance competitors.

Banks that choose not to use fintechs partners may find themselves lacking the ability to get embedded into consumer loan deals and unable to offer consumers a frictionless experience during the process. They can’t leverage alternative data, machine learning and artificial intelligence to get a more-accurate portrayal of a consumer’s creditworthiness outside of their FICO credit scores. Accessing value-add technology and creative solutions allows banks to innovate rapidly to improve efficiencies and meet the future needs of businesses and consumers.

Fintechs have demonstrated their ability to meet banks’ third-party standards. Banks sitting on the partnership sidelines are cautioned to set aside their “sword and shield” mentality in favor of an approach that’s more inviting and open to collaborative innovation. Today’s current economic environment can act as a catalyst for this change.

Banks have proven they are capable of being highly responsive to meet business and consumer needs during recent challenges. This is an opportunity for them to think differently and invest in partnerships to quickly offer new experiences as demand for financial products and services increases.

How Innovative Banks Grow Deposits

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deposits-8-14-19.pngCommunity banks are under enormous pressure to grow deposits.

Post-crisis liquidity concerns have challenged firms to find low-cost funds, while mega-banks continue to gobble up market share and customers demand digital offerings. In this intense environment, some banks are looking for ways to shake up their approach to gathering deposits. But some of the most compelling opportunities — digital-only banks and banking-as-a-service — require executives to rethink their banks’ strengths, their brands and their future roles in the financial ecosystem.

Digital Bank Brands
When JPMorgan & Co. shut down its digital-only brand called Finn after just one year, some saw it as a sign that community banks shouldn’t bother trying. But Dub Sutherland, shareholder and director of San Antonio, Texas-based TransPecos Banks, argues that there are too many unknowns to make extrapolations from Chase’s decision to ditch Finn.

Sutherland’s bank, which has $224 million in assets, successfully launched a digital-only brand that caters to medical professionals: BankMD. TransPecos is using NYMBUS’ SmartLaunch solution to focus on building products that meet the particular needs of medical professionals. BankMD has its own deposit and loan tracking system, so it doesn’t affect TransPecos’ existing operations. Sutherland says most BankMD customers don’t know and don’t seem to care about the bank on the back end.

Bankers who’ve spent decades crafting their institution’s brand might bristle at the thought of divorcing a digital brand from their brick-and-mortar signage.

“I think there’s a fear for those who don’t understand branding and marketing, and don’t understand the new customer. The fact that being “First National Bank of Wherever” doesn’t really carry anything in this day and age,” explains Sutherland. “I do think there are a lot of bankers who fear that they’re going to somehow dilute their brand if they go and launch a digital one.”

That should never be the case, if executed properly. Sutherland explains the digital brand should be “targeting entirely different customers that [the bank] didn’t get before. It should absolutely be accretive.”

Community banks may be able to use a digital-only offering to develop expertise that serves different, niche segments and to experiment with new technologies — without putting core deposits at risk.

Banking-as-a-service
A cohort of banks gather deposits by providing deposit accounts, debit cards and payment services to financial technology companies that, in turn, provide those offerings to customers. In this “banking-as-a-service” (BaaS) model, banks provide the plumbing, settlement and regulatory oversight that enables fintechs to offer financial products; the fintechs bring relatively lower-cost deposits from their digitally native customers.

Essentially, BaaS helps these banks get a piece of the digital deposit pie without transforming the institutions.

“These are low-cost deposits. [Banks’] don’t have to do any servicing on them, there’s no recurring costs, no KYC calls,” says Sankaet Pathak, CEO of San Francisco-based Synapse. Synapse provides banks with the application programming interfaces (APIs) they need to automate a BaaS offering. He says banks “have almost no cost” with deposit-taking in a BaaS model that uses a Synapse platform.

Similar to a digital brand, providing BaaS for fintechs means the bank’s brand takes a back seat. That was a big consideration for Reinbeck, Iowa-based Lincoln Savings Bank when it explored the BaaS model, says Mike McCrary, EVP of e-commerce and emerging technology. Lincoln Savings, which has $1.3 billion in assets, has been running its LSBX BaaS program for about five years, using technology from Q2 Open.

McCrary began his career at the bank in the marketing department, so the model was something his team seriously weighed. In the end, though, McCrary says he’s proud to be enabling fintech partners to do great things.

“It doesn’t diminish our brand, because our brand is really for us, within the places that we touch,” he says. “We definitely continue to try to maximize that and increase the value of the brand within our marketplace, but we’re able to then offer our services outside of that immediate marketplace, with these other really great [fintech] brands.”

Bankers need to grapple with whether they are comfortable putting their firms’ brand on the backburner in order to launch a digital bank or BaaS program. But regardless of how banks choose to grow deposits, the time for considering these new business models is now.

“The cost of deposits, in particular, is a challenge that creates a ‘We need to do something about this’ statement inside a board room or an ALCO committee,” says Q2 Open COO Scott McCormack. “My advice would be to consider alternative strategies sooner than later[.] The opportunity to grow deposits by building a direct bank, partnering with or enabling a fintech … is a strategy that is more compelling than it has ever been.”

Potential Technology Partners

NYMBUS SmartLaunch

SmartLaunch leverages Nymbus’ SmartCore to offer a “digital bank-in-a-box” that runs deposits, loans and payments parallel to the bank’s existing infrastructure.

Q2 Open

Its CorePro system of record helps developers easily build mobile financial services. With a single set of API calls, CorePro can also be used to develop a BaaS offering.

Synapse

BaaS APIs serve as middleware, allowing banks to offer products and services to fintechs and automate the internal Know Your Customer, Anti-Money Laundering and settlement processes for the bank.

Treasury Prime

Their APIs enabled Boston-based Radius Bank to provide BaaS support powering a new checking account called Stackin’ Cash.

Learn more about each of the technology providers in this piece by accessing their profiles in Bank Director’s FinXTech Connect platform.

The Key To Creating A Profitable Deposit Strategy

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deposit-5-6-19.pngSmall and mid-size banks can leverage technology to retain and grow their retail relationships in the face of fierce competition for deposits.

Big banks like JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co. continue to lead the battle for deposits. They grew their domestic deposits by more than 180 percent, or $2.4 trillion, over the past 10 years, according to an analysis of regulatory data by The Wall Street Journal. To survive and thrive, smaller institutions will need to craft sustainable, profitable strategies to grow deposits. They should invest in technology to become more efficient, develop effective marketing strategies and leverage data and analytics to personalize products and customer experiences.

Banks can use technology to achieve efficiencies such as differentiating net new money from transfers of existing funds. This is key to growing deposits. Traditionally, banks and their legacy core systems were unable to distinguish between new deposits and existing ones. This meant that banks paid out promotional interest and rewards to customers who simply shifted money between accounts rather than made new deposits. Identifying net new money allows banks to offer promotions on qualified funds, govern it more effectively, incentivize new termed deposits and operate more efficiently.

To remain competitive, small and mid-sized banks should leverage technology to create experiences that strengthen customer retention and loyalty. One way they can do this is through micro-segmentation, which uses data to identify the interests of specific consumers to influence their behavior. Banks can use it to develop marketing campaigns that maximize the effectiveness of customer touchpoints.

Banks can then use personalization to execute on these micro-segmentation strategies. Personalized client offerings require data, a resource readily available to banks. Institutions can use data to develop a deeper understanding of consumer behaviors and personalize product offers that drive customer engagement and loyalty.

Consumers deeply valued personalization, making it critical for banks trying to attract new customers and retain existing ones. A report by The Boston Consulting Group found that 54 percent of new bank customers said a personalized experience was “either the most important or a very important factor” in their decision to move to that bank. Sixty-eight percent of survey respondents added products or services because of a personalized approach. And “among customers who had left a bank, 41 percent said that insufficient personalized treatment was a factor in their decision,” the report read.

Banks can use data and analytics to better understand consumer behavior and act on it. They can also use personalization to shift from push marketing that promotes specific products to customers to pull marketing, which draws customers to product offerings. Institutions can leverage relationship data to build attractive product bundles and targeted incentives that appeal to specific customer interests. Banks can also use technology to evaluate the effectiveness of new products and promotions, and develop marketing campaigns to cross sell specific, recommended products. This translates to more-informed offers with greater response, leading to happier customers and improved bottom lines.

Small and mid-sized banks can use micro-segmentation and personalization to increase revenue, decrease costs and provide the kind of customer experience that wins customer deposits. Building and retaining relationships in the digital era is not easy. But banks can use technology to develop marketing campaigns and personalization strategies as a way to strengthen customer loyalty and engagement.

As the competition for deposits heats up, banks will need to control deposits costs, prevent attrition and grow deposits in a profitable and sustainable way. Small and mid-size banks will need to invest in technology to optimize marketing, personalization and operational strategies so they can defend and grow their deposit balances.

Retail Checking Realities

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Forty percent of retail checking relationships are unprofitable, so crafting retail checking accounts that deepen customer relationships, drive deposit growth and enhance the bottom line is a challenge faced by most financial institutions. How can bank leaders tackle this issue? In this video, StrategyCorps’ Mike Branton shares two common mistakes banks make regarding their retail checking products. He also shares his thoughts on enhancing the appeal of checking products and explains technology’s role as a deposit driver.

  • Driving Deposit Growth
  • Why Big Banks are Winning Customers
  • Making Checking More Profitable

 

This Bank Is Winning the Competition for Deposits

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deposits-3-15-19.pngFrom the perspective of a community or regional bank, one of the most ominious trends in the industry right now is the organic deposit growth at the nation’s biggest banks.

This trend has gotten a lot of attention in recent years. Yet, the closer you look, the less ominous it seems—so long as you’re not a community or regional bank based in a big city, that is.

The experience of JPMorgan Chase & Co. serves as a case in point.

Deposits at Chase have grown an average of 9.4 percent per year since 2014. That’s more than twice the 4.6 percent average annual rate for the rest of the industry. Even other large national banks have only increased their deposits by a comparatively modest 5.3 percent over this period.

This performance ranks Chase first in the industry in terms of the absolute increase in deposits since 2014—they’re up by a total of $215 billion, which is equivalent to the seventh largest commercial bank in the country.

If any bank is winning the competition for deposits, in other words, it seems fair to say it’s Chase.

But why is it winning?

The answer may surprise you.

It certainly helps that Chase spends billions of dollars every year to be at the forefront of the digital banking revolution. Thanks to these investments, it has the single largest, and fastest growing, active mobile banking base among U.S. banks.

As of the end of 2018, Chase had 49 million active digital customers, 33 million of which actively use its mobile app. Eighty percent of transactions at the bank are now completed through self-service channels, yielding a 15-percent decline in the cost to serve each consumer household.

Yet, even though digitally engaged customers are more satisfied with their experience at Chase, spend more money on Chase-issued cards and use more Chase products, its digital banking channels aren’t the primary source of the bank’s deposit growth.

Believe it or not, Chase attributes 70 percent of the increase in deposits to customers who use its branches.

“Our physical network has been critical in achieving industry-leading deposit growth,” said Thasunda Duckett, CEO of consumer banking, at the bank’s investor day last month. “The progress we’ve made in digital has made it easier for our customers to self-serve. And we’ve seen this shift happen gradually across all age groups. But even as customers continue to use their mobile app more often, they still value our branches. Convenient branch locations are still the top factor for customers when choosing their bank.”

This bears repeating. Despite all the hoopla about digital banking—much of which is legitimate, of course—physical branches continue to be a primary draw of deposits.

Suffice it to say, this is why Chase announced in 2018 that it plans to open as many as 400 new branches in major cities across the East Coast and Mid-Atlantic regions.

Three of Chase’s flagship expansion markets are Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. This matters because large metropolitan markets like these have performed much better in the ongoing economic expansion compared to their smaller, nonmetropolitan counterparts.

The divergence in economic fortunes is surprising. A full 99 percent of population growth in the country since 2007 has occurred in the 383 urban markets the federal government classifies as metropolitan areas. It stands to reason, in turn, that this is where deposit growth is occurring as well.

Chase isn’t the only big bank expanding in, and into, large metropolitan markets, either. Bank of America Corp. is doing so, too, recently establishing for the first time a physical retail presence in Denver. And U.S. Bancorp and PNC Financial Services Group are following suit, expanding into new retail markets like Dallas.

The point being, even though the trend in deposit growth has led analysts and commentators to ring the death knell for smaller community and regional banks without billion-dollar technology budgets, there’s reason to believe that the business model of many of these banks—focused on branches in smaller urban and rural areas—will allow them to continue prospering.