3 Strategies for Gathering Deposits in a New Era

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With interest rates at their highest point in 16 years, financial institutions must revisit their deposit gathering strategies.

The conventional tactics like using rate specials for certificates of deposits and high yield online savings accounts are more expensive and less effective than they once were. And in a world where every customer can instantly withdraw funds for a better offer via a phone app, it’s not enough to simply attract deposits. Financial institutions must be able to retain those deposits with something beyond the best rates. Here are three strategies for banks to attract and retain primary deposit accounts in this challenging operating environment.

1. Personalized Approach for Individual Customers
In the age of big data, a personalized approach is not just possible, it’s necessary. Financial institutions should utilize the wealth of information they have on their customers to tailor services and products to individual needs.

  • Understand customers. While this strategy is obvious, its successful execution has been elusive. Too often, these data points are scattered between disparate systems; banks are challenged in reconciling them effectively and in a manner where they can be deployed where and when they’re needed. Financial institutions should be demanding this type of reconciliation from their digital banking vendors, which sit at the intersection of many internal systems, various fintech partners and the bank customer’s primary interaction point with their accounts.
  • Offer tailored products. Use the insights gathered to offer personalized savings plans, customized investment advice or bespoke financial products that encourage customers to maintain and increase deposits. Again, the idea is not original, but the execution is tricky. Making tailored offers at scale should be considered table stakes in modern banking but requires investments in both technology and talent. Simply enabling account holders to view balances on their phone is not enough to build loyalty. Financial institutions should think about how they can replicate the old school relationship banking approach, where a customer feels understood and doesn’t have to navigate bureaucracy and poor technology to get to the products and services they need.

2. Sophisticated Treasury Tools for Businesses
Today’s businesses need more than a simple deposit account. They require comprehensive financial solutions that support their operations, manage risks and foster growth. A growing number of these businesses are using these sophisticated services — often from third parties. Integrating sophisticated treasury tools into business accounts can make these accounts stickier and more attractive for current and prospective customers.

  • Cash management tools. Advanced cash management tools can provide businesses with real-time visibility into their cash flow, enabling them to optimize liquidity. This includes tools for automated receivables, payables and sweep accounts to manage balances across multiple accounts, along with optimizing interest rate options.
  • Risk management tools. Effective risk management tools are essential in helping businesses navigate today’s myriad financial risks. This can include foreign exchange tools to manage currency exposure, interest rate derivatives to handle interest rate fluctuations and fraud detection tools to safeguard against malicious activities.
  • Digital payment solutions. Digital payment solutions can streamline transactions, making daily operations smoother and more efficient. From Automated Clearing House payments to wire transfers, mobile payments and integrated payables, these tools provide flexibility, speed and convenience in handling transactions.

3. Investment in Technology and Innovation
Adopting the above strategies requires banks to make a significant investment in technology and innovation. However, this is a crucial step to stay competitive in the evolving financial landscape.

  • Robust data infrastructure. Invest in a robust data infrastructure to support the implementation of a data-driven personalized approach. This includes advanced data analytics tools and machine learning algorithms that can extract valuable insights from customer data.
  • Advanced treasury tools. Develop and integrate these sophisticated tools into business accounts. This may require investing in fintech partnerships or in-house innovation and offering value-added services beyond traditional banking.
  • Digital platforms. Enhance the user experience, making it easy for individuals to manage their accounts and for businesses to use their treasury tools. This includes intuitive interfaces, real-time updates and seamless integration with other financial systems.

In this era of high interest rates and less sticky deposits, traditional strategies are losing their charm. In order to stay competitive, financial institutions must innovate and personalize their approach to gathering primary deposit accounts. Understanding and catering to the needs of individual customers and businesses will allow financial institutions to attract and retain more deposits and successfully navigate the challenges of this high-rate environment.

Digital Wealth Management Is a Golden Opportunity for Growth

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Wealth management is quickly becoming the largest opportunity for banks to both grow and retain customers — an imperative in the face of continued economic uncertainty.

Financial organizations represent trillions of dollars in deposits, but without a dedicated enterprise-level digital wealth platform, they are seeing a flow of dollars to digital-first investment platforms. Community banks face incredible pressure to retain deposits, increase fee-based revenue and stem deposit outflows to investment solutions that invariably try to upsell banking services to these new investors. But using the following key methods can give banks a way to implement investment services themselves — a move that could be a game changer for customer engagement and their bottom line.

Offering a thoughtfully crafted wealth strategy provides banks with myriad benefits — specifically a digital wealth and financial inclusion offering. Traditionally, wealth management services have been geared toward high net worth clients, creating a sizable gap in bank services. A digital wealth solution allows banks to effectively service wealth accounts as low as $500, enabling better service and soliciting more engagement from their broad customer base. Dramatically lowering the entry point to wealth management services gives banks an avenue to share greater access to financial services to their customers than they have been able to historically.

Implementing a digital investment offering means customers don’t have to seek a new relationship outside of the bank; instead, they can deepen their relationship with their current bank through additional lending and savings products. This is crucial in an operating environment where customer retention is paramount.

And the digital approach to investment services allows digitally native customers to use the investment platforms on their own terms. Investing in digital tools and channels also broaden a financial institution’s reach beyond the traditional branch model and hours of operation. Our banking clients report that about 25% of their digital wealth traffic occurs during nights and weekends — times their branch teams are not typically available to provide service.

The increasing focus on noninterest income, coupled with the retained deposit revenue, are the two primary drivers we see increasing interest from banks that want to build a wealth practice. Noninterest income is increasingly important to community banks; wealth management services are one of the best ways to increase this differentiated revenue stream.

So, where should banks even begin when it comes to providing wealth services? There are actually a number of ways to do it. The first option is to create a registered investment adviser, or RIA. Traditionally larger banks have built out this function in-house, using their size and scale to support the increased regulatory burden, compliance costs and additional operational requirements. Banks that choose this route maintain complete control over the client experience while the RIA provides trusted, timely advice to clients. But the start-up costs for building an RIA are quite high, so we often see institutions step into the wealth journey through other partnership or outsourcing models.

Another option is for financial institutions to hire an adviser led third party marketing, or TPM, provider to offer investment services. This alternative typically applies to mid-sized financial organizations looking for an advisory relationship, where the TPM provider handles the compliance and risk issues that may arise. This is an interesting opportunity, albeit one that is almost exclusively focused on the human adviser with minimal digital offerings. Working with advisers forces institutions to focus on their high net-worth customers, leaving a gap in the service model for customers who can’t reach certain account thresholds.

Lastly, financial institutions may choose to leverage a digital platform that offers wealth management as a service or platform. This option, which takes a page from the software as a service model, best works for banks that don’t have an existing wealth management offering or where there is a gap in the existing wealth offering depending on account sizes. Organizations often find this option promotes financial inclusion because it appeals to their entire customer base and enables them to retain client relationships as their business grows. In addition, embedded wealth management platforms typically have a faster implementation period and lower operating costs compared to hiring full-time staff into new roles. By outsourcing the wealth practice, financial institutions enjoy minimal operational or technical requirements with the benefits of a wealth solution.

When considering growth opportunities, financial institutions should consider digital investment services as a top option for speed of deployment and an efficient use of capital. Improving existing client satisfaction with a wider variety of services, appealing to a younger customer base through technology options, retaining client assets and increasing fee-based revenue are some of the significant benefits that digital wealth management brings to banks.

Getting Everyone on Board the Digital Transformation Journey

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Digital transformation isn’t a “one and done” scenario but a perpetual program that evolves with the ever-changing terrain of the banking industry. Competition is everywhere; to stay in the game, bank executives need to develop a strategy that is based, in large part, on what everyone else is doing.

According to a What’s Going On In Banking 2022 study by Cornerstone Advisors, credit unions got a digital transformation head start on banks: 16% launched a strategy in 2018 or earlier, versus just 9% of banks that had launched a strategy the same year. But it’s not only credit unions and traditional big banks that community financial institutions need to be watching. Disruptors like Apple and Amazon.com pose a threat as they roll out new innovations. Fintech players like PayPal Holding’s Venmo and Chime are setting the pace for convenient customer payments. And equally menacing are mortgage lenders like Quicken’s Rocket Mortgage and AmeriSave, which approve home loans in a snap.

An essential consideration in a successful digital transformation is having key policy and decision-makers on the same page about the bank’s technology platforms. If it’s in the bank’s best interest to scrap outdated legacy systems that no longer contribute to its long-term business goals, the CEO, board of directors and top executives need to unanimously embrace this position in support of the bank’s strategy.

Digital transformation is forcing a core system decision at many institutions. Bank executives are asking: Should we double down on digital with our existing core vendor or go with a new, digital platform? Increasingly, financial institutions are choosing to go with digital platforms because they believe the core vendors can’t keep up with best-in-class innovation, user experience and integration. Many are now opting for next-generation, digital-first cores to run their digital platform, with an eye towards eventually converting their legacy bank over to these next-gen cores.

Digital transformation touches every aspect of the business, from front line workers to back-end systems, and it’s important to determine how to separate what’s vital from what’s not. Where should banks begin their digital transformation journey? With a coordinated effort and a clear path to achieving measurable short- and long-term goals.

Here are some organization-wide initiatives for banks to consider as they dive into new digital transformation initiatives or enhance their current ones.

1. Set measurable, achievable transformation goals. This can include aspirations like improving customer acquisition and retention by upgrading customer digital touchpoints like the website or mobile app.
2. Prioritize systems that can produce immediate returns. Systems that automate repetitive tasks or flag incomplete applications create cost-efficient and optimal outcomes for institutions.
3. Invest in a discipline to instill a changed mindset. A bank that upgrades a system but doesn’t alter its people’s way of thinking about everything from customer interaction to internal processes will not experience the true transformational benefit of the change.
4. Conduct a thorough evaluation of all sales and service channels. This will enable the bank to determine not only how to impact the maximum number of customers, but also impart the greatest value to them through product assessment and innovation.
5. Get employees on board with “digital” readiness. Form small training groups that build on employees’ specialized knowledge and skills, rather than adopting a one-size-fits-all model. Employees that are well-trained in systems, processes and technology are invaluable assets in your institution’s digital transformation journey.

Banks must foster their unique cultures and hard-earned reputations to remain competitive in this ever-changing financial services landscape. As they build out digital strategies, they must continue fine-tuning the problem-solving skills that will keep them relevant in the face of evolving customers, markets and opportunities. Most importantly, banks must embrace a lasting commitment to an ongoing transformation strategy, across the organization and in all their day-to-day activities. For this long-term initiative, it’s as much about the journey as it is the destination.

Managing Risk When Buying Technology for Engagement

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No bank leader wants to buy an engagement platform, but they do want to grow customer relationships. 

Many, though, risk buying engagement platforms that won’t grow relationships for a sustained period of time. Most platforms are not ready-made for quality, digital experience that serve depositors and borrowers well, which means they threaten much more than a bank’s growth. They are a risk to the entire relationship with each customer.  

Consumers are increasingly expressing a need for help from their financial providers. Less than half of Americans can afford a surprise $1,000 expense, according to a survey from Bankrate; about 60% say they do not have $1,000 in savings. One in 5 adults would put a surprise expenditure on a credit card, one of the most expensive forms of debt. More than half of consumers polled want more help than they’re getting from their financial provider. However, the 66% of those  who say they have received communication from their provider were unhappy about the generic advice they received. 

This engagement gap offers banks a competitive opportunity. Consumers want more and better engagement, and they are willing to give their business those providers who deliver. About 83% of households polled said they would consider their institution for their next product or service when they are both “satisfied and fully engaged,” according to Gallup. The number drops to 45% if the household is only satisfied. 

Banks seeking to use engagement for growth should be wary of not losing customer satisfaction as they pursue full engagement. As noted earlier, about 66% of those engaged aren’t satisfied with the financial provider’s generic approach. What does that mean for financial institutions? The challenge is quality of engagement, not just quantity or the lack thereof. If they deliver quantity instead of quality, they risk both unsatisfied customers as well as customers who ignore their engagement. 

According to Gallup, only 19% of households said they would grow their relationship when they are neither satisfied nor fully engaged. This is a major risk banks miss when buying engagement platforms: That the institution is buying a technology not made for quality, digital experiences and won’t be able to serve depositors and borrowers well any time soon. 

But aren’t all engagement platforms made for engagement? Yes — but not all are made for banking engagement, and even fewer are made with return on investment in mind. Banking is unique; the tech that powers it should be as well. Buyers need to vet platforms for what’s included in terms of know-how. What expertise does the platform contain and provide for growing a bank? Is that built into the software itself?

A purpose-built platform can show bankers which contact fields are of value to banking engagement, for example, and which integrations can be used to populate those fields. It can also show how that data can become insights for banks when it overlaps with customers’ desired outcomes. And it offers the engagement workflows across staff actions, emails, print marketing and text messaging that result in loan applications, originations, opened accounts or activated cards.   

Previously, the only options available were generic engagement platforms made for any business; banks had to take on the work of customizing platforms. Executives just bought a platform and placed a bet that they could develop it into a banking growth tool. They’d find out if they were right only after paying consultants, writers, designers, and marketing technologists for years.  

Financial services providers no longer need to take these risks. A much better experience awaits them and their current and prospective customers clamoring for a relationship upgrade.

The Easiest Way to Launch a Digital Bank

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New fintechs are forcing traditional financial institutions to acclimatize to a modern banking environment. Some banks are gearing up to allow these fintechs to hitchhike on their existing bank charters by providing application programming interfaces (APIs) for payments, deposits, compliance and more. Others are launching their own digital brands using their existing licenses.

Either way, the determining factor of the ultimate digital experience for users and consumers is the underlying technology infrastructure. While banks can spawn digital editions from their legacy cores through limited APIs and cobbled-up middleware, the key questions for their future relevance and resilience remain unanswered:

  1. Can traditional banks offer the programmability needed to launch bespoke products and services?
  2. Can they compose products on the fly and offer the speed to market?
  3. Can they remove friction and offer a sleek end-to-end experience?
  4. Can they meet the modern API requirements that developers and fintechs demand from banks?

If the core providers and middleware can’t help, what can banks use to launch a digital bank? The perfect springboard for launching a digital bank may lie in the operating system.

Removing friction at every touchpoint is the overarching theme around most innovation. So when it comes to innovation, why do banks start with the core, which is often the point in their system with the least amount of flexibility and the most friction?

When it comes to launching a digital bank, the perfect place for an institution to start is an operating system that is exclusively designed for composability — that they can build configurable components to create products and services — and the rapid launch of banking products. Built-in engines, or engines that can take care of workflows based on business rules, in the operating system can expedite the launch of financial services products, while APIs and software development kits open up the possibility for custom development and embedded banking.

That means banks can create products designed for the next generation of consumers or for niche communities through the “composability” or “programmability” offered by these operating systems. This can include teen accounts, instant payments for small and medium-sized business customers that can improve their cash flow, foreign exchange for corporate customers with international presence, domestic and international payments to business customers, tailored digital banking experiences; whatever the product, banks can easily compose and create on the fly. What’s more, they also have granular control to customize and control the underlying processes using powerful workflow engines. The operating system also provides access to centralized services like compliance, audit, notifications and reporting that different departments across the bank can access, improving operational efficiency.

Menu-based innovation through operating systems
The rich assortment of microservices apps offered in operating systems can help banks to launch different applications and features like FedNow, RTP and banking as a service(BaaS) on the fly. The process is simple.

The bank fills up a form with basic information and exercises its choice from a menu of microapps compiled for bankers and customers. The menu includes the payment rails and networks the bank needs — ACH, Fedwire, RTP, Swift — along with additional options like foreign exchange, compliance, onboarding and customer experiences like bulk and international payments, to name a few.

The bank submits the form and receives notification that its digital bank has been set up on a modern, scalable and robust cloud infrastructure. The institution also benefits from an array of in-built features like audit, workflows, customer relationship management, administration, dashboards, fees and much more.

Setting up the payment infrastructure for a digital bank can be as easy as ordering a pizza:

  1. Pick from the menu of apps.
  2. Get your new digital brand setup in 10 minutes.
  3. Train employees to use the apps.
  4. Launch banking products to customers.
  5. Onboard fintech partners through For-Benefit-Of Accounts (FBO)/virtual accounts.
  6. Offer APIs to provide banking as a service without the need for middleware.

The pandemic has given new shape and form to financial services; banks need the programmability to play with modular elements offered on powerful operating systems that serve as the bedrock of innovation.

FinXTech’s Need to Know: Charitable Giving Platforms

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In the wake of disaster, people give back.

Less than twenty-four hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a “special military operation” in neighboring Ukraine, Ukrainian-based charity Come Back Alive received over $673,000 in donations — $400,000 of which was in bitcoin. At the time of this newsletter, over $50 million has been donated to Ukraine in cryptocurrency.

Whether it’s a global catastrophe or an organization closer to home, U.S. consumers want easy ways to give to the causes that are important to them. Banks are in a perfect position not only to highlight local charities for their customers, but also to facilitate donations to them in a safe, efficient and trackable manner.

And financial technology companies can provide the software to make it possible.

Fintechs that specialize in charitable giving help embed donation capabilities directly into a bank’s digital banking platform via application programming interfaces (APIs), avoiding lengthy core integration timelines. Once live, bank customers can choose which charities to give to, how often they donate and, of course, how much.

Charleston-based in/PACT offers a white-labeled giving solution for banks called GoodCoin. GoodCoin allows customers to give in multiple ways: one-off donations, recurring gifts (monthly, bi-weekly, etc.) or “round up,” which rounds up a user’s card payments to the nearest dollar and donates the change.

These fintechs also keep track of each customer’s donations for the year. Users can access exportable receipts during tax season, or whenever a donation is made. And using a giving-based fintech allows users to access how much they’ve given starting at the start of the year or since they started giving so they can track their impact.

Pinkaloo, another charitable giving platform, operates accounts for charitable donations that are similar to a health savings account. Customers can fund the account, donate to a selected charity and immediately receive a tax receipt for the transactions — all under the bank’s brand. Customers can even convert their credit card rewards points into charitable dollars.

On a larger scale, CyberGrants, which was acquired by Apax Partners in June 2021, helps banks to manage, track and report on all of their corporate philanthropic efforts. It also has a front-end interface that allows employees to sign up for payroll donations or track volunteer hours and nonprofits to apply for bank grants.

Here are four customer- and bank-facing benefits of implementing a giving-based fintech:

  • It provides audit-ready, real-time and exportable tax receipts. All of a customer’s giving lives in one place. Banks can even use certain platforms to track enterprise-level giving. 
  • It promotes giving, locally and globally. There are over 1.5 million 503(c)3 nonprofit organizations registered with the IRS. in/PACT has over 1.2 million of them on its platform for users to search and donate to. Banks can also use the platforms to match customer donations to specific charities.
  • It can realign or reinforce corporate philanthropy. Collecting donation data can show banks what charities or causes are important to their community. They can later choose to incorporate or emphasize those organizations into their corporate giving strategy.
  • It drives digital engagement and brand loyalty. Consumers like aligning themselves with brands that provide opportunities to give back (and give back themselves). Having a donation platform as an integral part of a mobile banking experience can keep customers engaged and coming back.

Banks that implement a giving platform can help customers increase their charitable donations on their time and dime.

Pinkaloo, in/PACT and CyberGrants are included in FinXTech Connect, a curated directory of technology companies who strategically partner with financial institutions of all sizes. For more information about how to gain access to the directory, please email [email protected].

Digital Deniers Need Not Apply

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There are few bankers who understand the process of digital transformation better than Mike Butler.

Beginning in 2014, Butler oversaw the evolution of Boston-based Radius Bancorp from a federally chartered, brick-and-mortar thrift to one of the most tech-forward banks in the country. Radius closed all its branches except for one (federal thrifts are required to have at least one branch) and adopted a digital-only consumer banking platform.

The digital reinvention was so successful that in February 2020, LendingClub Corp. announced a deal to buy Radius to augment that marketplace lender’s push into digital banking. Now Butler is off on another digital adventure, this time as president and CEO of New York-based Grasshopper Bancorp, a five-year-old de novo bank focused on the small business market. Like Radius, Grasshopper operates a digital-only platform.

Butler will moderate a panel discussion at Bank Director’s upcoming Acquire or Be Acquired Conference focusing on the importance of integrating bank strategy with technology investments. The conference runs Jan. 30-Feb. 1, 2022, at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort and Spa in Phoenix.

Butler says that successful transformation begins with the bank’s executive management team and board of directors, where discussions about technology need to be an integral part of strategic planning. And most importantly, management and the board need to see digital transformation as crucial to the bank’s future success. Butler says there are still plenty of “digital deniers” among bankers who believe they can be successful without strengthening their institution’s digital capabilities.

“Have you embraced the kinds of changes that are taking place inside the industry?” Butler says. “And do you have a very strong cultural commitment to be a part of that change? When you do that, you start to look to technology as the enabling driver to get you to that place.”

Management teams that are just starting out on a path to digital transformation can easily find themselves overwhelmed by the sheer number of potential projects. “The most important thing to do is to prioritize and recognize that you cannot do this all at once,” Butler says. “It would be a mess if you tried. Pick two to three things that you think are critically important.”

A third element of a successful transformation process is finding the right person to lead the project. “You’ve got to have the right talent to do it,” Butler says. “That leader better be somebody who has been pushing it rather than you push it on them as CEO. You can’t say, ‘Joe, you’ve been running branches for 30 years, do you believe in digital? Eh, kind of. Okay, I want you to put in a digital platform.’ That’s not going to work.”

Butler goes so far as to say that only true believers should run those fintech projects. “You cannot do this without people that have the passion and the belief to get to the other side, because you will hit a lot of roadblocks and you’ve got to be able to bust through those roadblocks,” he says. “And if you don’t believe, if you don’t have the passion, there’s a lot of reasons to stop and go a different way.”

Butler might not seem the most likely person to be a digital change agent. He spent 13 years at Radius and pursued a branch banking strategy in the early years. Prior to joining Radius, Butler was president of KeyCorp’s national consumer finance business. He did not come from the fintech sector. He has a traditional banking background. And yet as Butler is quick to point out, Radius didn’t reinvent banking, it reinvented the customer experience.

The fact that Butler lacked a technology background didn’t deter him from pursuing a transformational strategy at Radius. He was smart enough to see the changes taking place throughout the industry, so he understood the business case, and he was also smart enough to surround himself with highly committed people who did understand the technology.

In building out its digital consumer banking platform, Radius worked with a number of third-party fintech vendors. “I wasn’t making technology decisions about whose technology was better, but I surely was making decisions about the companies that we were partnering with and what type of people we were willing to work with,” Butler says. “I met every single CEO of every company that we did business with, and that was a big part of our decision as to why we would partner with them.”

At Grasshopper, Butler says he prefers the challenge of building a new digital bank from scratch rather than converting a traditional bank like Radius to a digital environment. Sure, there are all the pain points of a startup, including raising capital. But the advantages go beyond starting with a clean piece of paper from a design perspective. “It’s really hard to transform a culture into something new inside of an organization,” Butler says. “So, I’d say the upside is that you get to start from scratch and hire the right people who have the right mindset.”

Five Ways to Challenge Digital Banks

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Over the past several years, financial institutions have experimented with and implemented new technologies to improve efficiency, security and customer experience. Although online banking is currently challenging traditional banking practices in several aspects, there are ways that traditional banks can fight back. Here are a few key offerings of digital banking, along with ways traditional banks can beat them at their own game.

1. Improved service
Digital banks offer customers 24-hour service and the ability to conduct a variety of transactions in their own time. AI-powered chatbots allows customers to ask questions, perform transactions and create accounts through one platform, at any time. This on-demand service appeals to customers as saving time and effort in their banking experience.

However, one of the key missing components of an online banking platform is human interaction, which can be easier and more rewarding than filling out a checklist on a website. Customers can easily convey any special requests or needs. By providing excellent customer service with genuine and knowledgeable human interaction, traditional banks can offer a more complete service than online banks.

2. Heightened security
To keep up with innovative offerings like video chat and digital account operations, online banks can utilize SD-WAN solutions to maintain reliable connectivity and efficiency for their security needs. Solutions such as antivirus and anti-malware programming, firewalls and biometric and/or facial recognition technology provide additional levels of security to protect customer information.

Traditional banks may less susceptible to cybersecurity threats. Despite online banks’ level of security, their fully-digital presence makes them more vulnerable to cyberattacks compared to traditional banks. It may also be much more difficult to regain what has been lost in the event of a data breach, due to the ways cybercriminals can hide.

3. Streamlined services
Digital transformation is all about streamlining and improving operations; the concept of a digital banking solution is no different. Digital bank users can achieve their banking needs through a single platform. In one “visit,” customers can view their balance and recent transactions, transfer money between accounts and pay bills. Some digital banks also have the option to sync accounts with budgeting apps to further manage budgets and spending.

This streamlining allows digital banks to significantly reduce the number of different products and services they offer. By comparison, traditional banks can provide many more services and options to better fit the individual needs of their customers, and make sure they feel important and well looked after.

Moreover, traditional banks should not feel the need to provide all these services in-house. There are plenty of fintech partners they can lean on, with very specialized capabilities in these services, to help diversify their products and services.

4. Cost-effectiveness
There are often various costs associated with banking, both for the institution and the customer. The low overhead of digital banking allows for a significant reduction in cost and fees and may offer lower-cost options for individuals interested in opening multiple accounts.

Reducing costs may also mean reducing services and, at times, customer experiences. There’s no such thing as a free lunch; the less a customer pays, the less they may get. Many community banks offer more products and services, as well as helpful staff and peace of mind for small financial cost.

5. Environmental consciousness
Working to become more environmentally friendly is becoming an important step for all institutions. Digital banks are succeeding in reducing their carbon footprint and overall waste.

Many traditional banks are making great headway in becoming more environmentally friendly, and have the added benefit of making these changes optional. Many of the customer-facing changes can be approved or rejected by the customer, such as electing paperless statements, giving them more control over their banking experience. Digital banks are challenging traditional community banks in many ways. But community banks can leverage the substantial competitive advantages they already possess to continue providing a greater and more comprehensive experience than digital banks.

Scaling Customer Acquisition Through Digital Account Openings

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A strong digital account opening strategy, when done correctly, can generate returns on investment that are both obvious and large.

Critical to this strategy, however, is to have a granular and holistic understanding of customer acquisition cost, or CAC. Customer acquisition cost is a broad topic and is usually composed of multiple channels. Digital account opening is a tool used to acquire customers, and therefore should be included in your financial institution’s CAC. ‍It may even be able to reduce your current CAC.

Financial institutions define CAC differently, and there is no limit to its granularity. We advise financial institutions to separate user acquisition cost into two buckets: digital CAC and physical CAC. This piece will focus on digital CAC.

With respect to digital CAC, there are a number of inputs that can include:

  • The digital account opening platform;
  • social media advertising spend;
  • print ad spend (mailers, billboards);
  • general ad spend (commercials, radio);
  • retargeting ad spend (i.e. Adroll); and
  • creative costs.

Optionally, a financial institution can also include the salaries and bonuses of employees directly responsible for growth, any overhead related to employees directly responsible for growth and even physical CAC, if this is less than 20% of overall CAC spend.

How Does Digital Account Opening Reduce CAC? ‍
Digital account opening platforms are actually intended to lower your customer acquisition costs. Initially, this might sound counterintuitive: how would installing a digital account platform, which is an additional cost, reduce CAC over the long run?

The answer is scale.

For example, let’s say your financial institution spends $1 million on marketing and gains 10,000 new customers. This results in a CAC of $100 per customer. Compare that to spending $1.2 million on marketing that includes digital account opening. Providing the ability for customers to easily open accounts through online, mobile and tablet channels results in 15,000 customers, dropping your CAC to $80. In this example, implementing a fast and easy way for customers to open accounts reduced CAC by 20% and increased the return on existing marketing spend.‍

Once you have a successful marketing machine that includes strong digital account opening, you will want to scale quickly. Marketing spend decisions should be driven by quantitative metrics. You should be able to confidently expect that if it increases marketing spend by $X, you will see a Y increase in new accounts and a Z increase in new deposits.

The only additional costs your financial institution incurs for account opening are per application costs — which tend to be nominal inputs to the overall CAC calculation. ‍

What is a Good CAC for a Financial Institution?‍
CAC has so many variables and broad-definitions that it is nearly impossible to tell financial institutions what is “good” and what is “bad.” Across CAC industry benchmarks, financial services has one of the highest costs to acquire new customers:

Technology (Software): $395

Telecom: $315‍

Banking/Insurance: $303

‍Real Estate: $213

Technology (Hardware): $182

Financial: $175

Marketing Agency: $141

Transportation: $98

Manufacturing: $83

Consumer Goods: $22

Retail: $10

Travel: $7‍ ‍‍

Customer acquisition cost and digital account opening go hand-in-hand. Financial institutions should focus on the output of any marketing spend, as opposed to the input cost. Different marketing strategies will have varied levels of scalability. It’s important to invest in strategies that can scale exponentially and cost-effectively. By focusing on these principles, your financial institution will quickly realize a path towards industry-leading growth and profit metrics, putting your financial institution ahead of the competition.

Three Steps to Mastering Digital Connection

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Before the coronavirus crisis, I heard bank leaders talk about “becoming digital,” but less than 15% considered themselves digital transformation leaders.

The pandemic has pushed banks to close the digital experience gap. Executives must take a hard look at what their customers expect and what digital tools (and products) they need to weather this crisis.

Digital transformation can’t happen without mastering the art of digital connection, which requires both technology and authentic human connection. To do this, banks must harness the power of data, technology, and their people to create customers for life. Here are three steps to help your bank master the art of digital connection.

Maximize Customers Data to Transform the Experience
If a customer walked into a branch for a typical transaction, the teller would have immediate visibility into their entire relationship and recent interactions — and would be empowered to recommend additional, relevant bank products or services. They would feel known and well-served by your teller.

Your digital infrastructure should provide the same humanized experience through email, customer service and other interactions with your bank. But unorganized, siloed data causes problems and impedes creating this experience. To maximize your customers’ data, you’ll need to:

  • Consolidate your view of each customer.
  • Ensure that teams have access to a high-level view of customer data and activity, from marketing to customer service.
  • Group them by segments in order to deliver relevant information about products and services. This step requires a solid understanding of your customer, their financial needs and their goals.

Invest in Technology That Reaches Customers Today
To inform, educate and engage your customers during this time of transition, you need sophisticated, best-in-class banking technology. Many banks have already come to this conclusion and are looking for help modernizing their banking experience.

A key component in meeting your customers where they are is quite literal. While some of your customers are well-versed in online banking, others have exclusively used their branch for their financial needs. The information these two audiences will need during this transition will look different, based on their previous interactions. Compared to customers who are already familiar with digital banking, those who have never done it before will need more specific, useful instructions to help them navigate their financial options and a clear pathway to 1-on-1 assistance. This kind of segmentation requires modern marketing technology that works in tandem with banking and lending tools.

Amplify Human Connections to Build Trust
Many banks have trouble letting go of the branch experience; customers have had the same reservations. In an Accenture survey of financial services, 59% of customers said it was important to have a real person available to give in-person advice about more complex products.

Now that going into a branch is not an option, your bank must find a way to use technology to amplify the human connections between your customers and staff. Especially now, sending meaningful, humanized communications will position your bank as a trusted financial partner. To transform your digital experience, and keep people at the center of every interaction, you must:

  • Personalize your messages — beyond just putting a customer’s name in the salutation. Data allows emails to be very specific to segments or even individuals. Don’t send out generic emails that contain irrelevant product offers.
  • Humanize your customer experience. Communicate that you know who you’re talking to each time a customer picks up the phone or contacts your help line.
  • Support a seamless omnichannel experience. Provide customers with clear avenues to get advice from your staff, whether that’s by email, phone or text.

Investment in innovation comes from the top down. Your bank must buy into this opportunity to transform your customer experience from leadership to all lines of your business. The opportunity is here now; this shift toward digital interactions is here to stay.

There’s no longer a question of whether a fully digital banking experience is necessary. Banks must leverage modern technology and the human connections their customers know them for to improve their overall customer experience. Excellent customer experience comes from delivering value at every touchpoint. This is the new bar all banks must meet.