A suggestion: the top of your list should be improving your core deposits of transaction accounts — both for consumers and small business.
There will be a lot of movement in core transaction deposits this year. Unfortunately, most of that movement will be leaving the bank and migrating to a FINTECH company — which could be Facebook or Google. How should your bank be reacting?
Start with this: most recent surveys for both small business and consumers show that 80 percent would switch banks over fees — provided the product attributes were fairly close. But even if they were not, more than a third would switch for better, more proactive customer service.
The lesson is clear
To grow your bank’s business and consumer portfolio you must re-engineer and re-formulate your current product to make it more valuable.
So, just how do you re-formulate and re-engineer your products? The headlines are
(1) gather lots of data about your customers and competitors,
(2) find some talented web app and middleware people to improve your customers’ mobile experience. Remember, more than 50% of digital experience is happening on smartphones and tablets. BE CAREFUL: do NOT be easily persuaded to buy a canned solution from your current Core Processor’s “preferred provider”. The stars in this endeavor are FINTECH companies, mostly young and far removed from the culture of most core processors. Interview multiple firms, including your current one and put them all through a robust RFP process.
(3) work out three, four or five account-pricing scenarios,
(4) conduct some customer and employee focus groups,
(5) design effective (and affordable) marketing programs, and
(6) design an effective measuring and monitoring program to track you progress.
