Future Branches Boston 2024 Blog

In today's banking world, branches are key symbols of stability and community connection. However, even the strongest branches feel the pressure to manage costs.

As banks and credit unions continue to focus on deposit growth, one area that has significant potential for growth is attracting and retaining local small businesses. The challenge, however, lies in more than mere attraction—it's about understanding, customizing, and innovating services to meet the unique needs of these enterprises. This article will explore how banks, credit unions, and other financial institutions can more effectively cater their services to small businesses so they can improve the attraction and retention of these meaningful clients.

The banking sector is tackling today's complex challenges with the help of AI, which is streamlining operations, enhancing security, and focusing more on customers. However, implementing AI can be challenging, as many banks struggle to identify exactly how they can use AI to achieve measurable results.

Financial institutions, including banks and credit unions, are finding themselves in an uphill battle when it comes to acquiring new customers.

The bedrock of banking success still lies in the strength of customer relationships and the ability to bring in new business. There is an unequivocal link between the training of employees and their capacity to be seen not just as transactional service providers, but as trusted advocates for their clients.

As the worst days of the COVID-19 crisis begin to fade from the headlines, there is one development from the pandemic which, it’s becoming increasingly apparent is here to stay. The desire for remote and/or hybrid working models is growing among banking employees and they are willing to change employers to gain access to them. In today’s article, we discuss some of the considerations firms need to keep in mind when implementing a hybrid or remote working model and how to avoid some of the pitfalls associated with them.

Attracting and retaining top talent has possibly never been more challenging than it is right now. The pandemic has created a buyers’ market which means prospective employees hold all the cards when it comes to choosing who they work for. In this article, we discuss in detail how employee engagement, training and development have become key battlegrounds in the war for the very best financial talent.

As the data environment around finance becomes ever more important and the regulatory atmosphere surrounding digital information becomes increasingly restrictive, open finance is rapidly establishing itself as a better way of sharing data while prioritizing security and privacy. In this article, we break down open finance and lay out some of the risks and benefits associated with the practice.

Banking customers are increasingly seeking brands which can offer digital and physical banking services and meet their needs in both worlds. This is leading banking institutions to seek out fintech partnerships to help them meet this need. In today’s blog we discuss the challenges associated with fintech partnerships and suggest some organizational changes banks can make to address them.

After the challenges of the COVID-19 crisis, those small businesses fortunate or innovative enough to have survived are now looking for all the help they can get to bounce back and thrive in the post-pandemic business landscape. In this week’s article, we discuss how small business owners are looking to deal with banking brands which are able to offer them increased levels of advice and assistance in this environment.

As interest rates continue to rise in the wake of subsequent global crises, banks and credit unions are going to find it increasingly challenging to attract new deposits and retain existing ones. People are more aware than ever of their options when it comes to switching and disruptors are making the process hassle-free. In this article, we discuss how banking brands can best attract and retain business with innovative products and attractive offers.

We all know how important digital technology is in the modern world of banking. Whether a customer is engaging with your bank brand in person at a brick-and-mortar location or on a smartphone, you need to make sure the technology is there to make their experience as enjoyable and hassle free as humanly possible.

This fact is leading many banking brands to funnel significant portions of their investment budgets into developing new technology driven methods of doing business. However, it’s difficult to know whether you are on the right track, without solid means of researching and testing new technological innovations.

It is this need which is driving many banks to invest in proprietary innovation labs and tech centers. These locations provide an elegant method of developing and testing new technologies and business practices in an environment where real customers can be engaged, and valid and reliable data can be generated.

We’re all more than familiar with the pattern of branch closures in the banking business here in the US by now. However, the situation is no less bleak across the Atlantic for our friends in the industry over in the United Kingdom. The knock-on effect of these closures it that they leave significant numbers of people without a physical bank branch near to where they live – posing massive problems for the elderly or infirm, or simply those without easy access to transportation.

The world of banking is going through a massive paradigm shift, of that there is little doubt. As bank branches continue to close and the shift to digital banking becomes ever more ubiquitous, there is a strong need for innovative solutions which incorporate the very latest technology from the world of digital transformation.

With the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic only now starting to really show its teeth, and a looming global energy crisis set to send household bills skyrocketing, banking customers are going to be searching for help and advice to navigate worsening financial hardships – now more than ever. This is especially true of customers in the latter years of their lives who may not be as comfortable with digital technology and online banking.

To try and help it – and the rest of the industry – better strategize for the future of the brick-and-mortar bank branch, KeyCorp retail banking subsidiary, KeyBank has been researching how best to meet the evolving needs of customers while remaining sensitive to those who still require a physical banking presence.

Trust is important when it comes to banking – and those brands which are able to establish themselves most effectively as a trusted partner in the lives of their customers are the ones which will keep people coming through branch doors in an increasingly digitized industry. To try and meet this challenge, global financial brand, HSBC has been working to build an ecosystem which goes beyond traditional banking interactions such as visiting the local branch to make deposits or telephoning a call center for support.

One advantage the physical bank branch will always have over digital disruptors is its staff. The benefits of having a friendly and helpful human face to interact with cannot be overstated. As a relatively new and small banking institution, Arca International Bank Inc. understands all too well the importance of establishing an intimate and sincere relationship with customers and believes this is the key to meaningful banking in the modern era.

We spend a lot of time in these articles talking about the much-portended demise of the physical bank branch and how we might either prepare for a branchless world or prevent the coming of one. However, as cash use has steadily declined in favor of contactless cards and other forms of quick and easy digital transaction, ATM use has been falling in recent years. This is leading innovative bank brands to revamp ATMs into altogether more fully featured devices.

As we begin to tentatively emerge from the worst days of the COVID-19 crisis, our attention must now turn to recovery. Brands up and down the country are searching for ways to stand out from the post pandemic crowd and make their brand appealing to the customers of a renewed normal. With it being easier than ever to switch provider, banks need to focus on customer retention, just as much as they do on acquiring new business.

Bank branch models are scaling alongside the natural market growth. Learn how these strategic decisions are adding values to the branch networks of today.

Determining the right balance of technology and personnel is a growing challenge as banks focus on perfecting their in-branch strategies. Now, banks are developing new techniques for staffing and technology adoption to deliver on both efficiency, financial, and customer experience requirements.

The Post Office has offered limited banking services for some time now, allowing customers to perform simple transactions such as paying in and withdrawing money from their accounts, but the relationship between banks and the Post Office is now becoming even deeper

First, branches offer The impression of security. Customers want to be able to trust their financial institutions, and the presence of a physical branch offers that reassurance. Digital banks just don't have a physical presence and can seem nebulous and opaque as a result

More and more businesses are using chatbots as a way of boosting the power of their customer service capabilities. Customers can access chatbots though popular messaging services such as Facebook, or through proprietary systems found on company websites, and interact with them to find answers to a range of common queries.

One of the biggest mistakes any business can make is to think it knows instinctively what its audience wants. Given that we live in an age of unprecedented access to information, assumptions are unnecessary and counterproductive