Can banks ever have fans?

When getting to the movie theater late, there was a time that you got the worst seat in the house: the front row.

Watching a movie from that seat is a terrible experience. You have to crane your neck back and keep looking back and forth at the screen to keep up with who's speaking or to keep up with the action. The middle rows of seats, however, give a great view of the screen. Viewers can see the whole screen and have an ideal spot for the presentation.

Fortunately, theatergoers can now plan ahead and pick their ideal seats with modern movie theaters and ticketing applications. Now think about where you want to position your customers when viewing their finances. Do you want them to be comfortable, or do you want them to strain to maintain focus?

The average consumer has 5.3 accounts at various financial institutions.

According to paymentsjournal.com, the average consumer has 5.3 accounts at various financial institutions. While they may have their primary accounts like checking and savings at the same bank or credit union, the spread of accounts can give customers a fuzzy picture of their finances. It can also create blind spots for banks when trying to align products to their consumers.

No wonder 72% of Americans worry about their finances. Having separate checking, savings, money market, cryptocurrency, and retirement accounts can compound that stress because humans are not wired for multitasking. While there are several personal finance applications on the market, they can be time-consuming to set up. They use data aggregators to link accounts, but just changing a setting on one of the outside accounts can frustrate users into abandoning them altogether. It is not a surprise why PFMs have not lived up to their promises!

The bank account hasn't evolved from the time banking started. Isn't it time for a complete reinvention of the account itself?

Everything around us has changed significantly in the last two decades. Advances in consumer tech now make everything available at our fingertips. You have a cult following for Apple products. Alibaba has its fans. TikTok has its loyalists, but why don't traditional banks have a following? Many of the largest banks don’t even come close to the following tech companies have on social media. It gets worse for smaller banks & credit unions in terms of likes and followers. People seem to love and trust consumer tech companies, but with banks it’s just not the same. The reason is that banks have not focussed enough on what the consumer needs, and these tech companies have done exactly that.

In fact, 63% of consumers say that their financial institution is not helping or may even be hurting their financial health. Banks have just one thing to do: Reimagine the bank account to focus on consumers and their financial health. Period. With all the data they have on the consumers, consumers won't even need multiple financial accounts if done right.

Consumer growth = Bank growth

A recent study by BOND.AI of a credit union found that a personalized account can result in a 10 percent increase in average user balance, a 60 percent reduction in basic customer service requests, and a 40 percent reduction in the cost of upselling products. The significant difference was the shift from 'propensity to buy' to aligning products to genuine consumer needs. Most importantly, there was a $1.5 million projected increase in revenue for the financial institution. Shifting from being product-centric to being consumer-centric can help the bank get significantly stronger, grow their customers, keep them longer and make consumers love them again.

People seem to love and trust consumer tech companies on social media, but with banks it’s just not the same.

While community banks used to compete with the bank across the street, it is now clearly evident that players in big tech are inching more and more into the financial sector. Google, Apple, Amazon, and everyone else is coming for their share. As technology companies begin to make their way into consumers' wallets, if banks lose focus on the consumer, customers will forget about community banks forever.

We have fans for movies, sports teams, and tech companies, but we don't have enough love for someone who manages the fundamental aspects of our lives - our money. Maybe one day there will be, but only if they put the user in the center seat!

BOND.AI provides artificial intelligence for finance, powered by the world's first Empathy Engine. Embed its SDK to help your consumers and small businesses remove financial uncertainty. The Empathy Engine acts as a genuine superpower for consumer financial health. When data is run through this engine, it creates unique personas for every consumer or a small business of your bank or fintech app. A persona that connects their behaviors, strengths, potential needs to understand them holistically and creates multiple paths to boost their financial lives. Learn more about how BOND.AI combines its onboarding experience, text and voice bot, and persona clusters to drive customer engagement and improve financial wellness by visiting BOND.AI.

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