Michael Schaus

As finance departments within banks begin to view branches as cost centers, driven by the rising convenience of digital banking, it is essential to mitigate the risks associated with closing these branches. We will discuss the potential impacts on remote communities and the importance of maintaining their connection to banking services. One strategy is the reframing of branches as data-rich assets – ie, beyond risk mitigation, we propose viewing remote branches as valuable data sources with rich contextual interactions that enable banks and the communities they support, to create a more nuanced and valuable data ecosystem. Taking a speculative futures approach, we will embody what these branches and ecosystems might look and feel like as future customers engage with them. Lastly, as banks endeavor to create secure, fraud-resistant digital environments, what can we learn from the particular challenges of remote branches for the future of all banking spaces? We will explore how branches can play a pivotal role in maintaining a tighter surface area for data protection as data sharing and transaction complexities grow.