Advent of interactive technologies and mobile wallets to affect branch banking
An Asian Banker Research report points to a slowdown in banks’ branch expansion in Asia Pacific as competitive market realities dictate greater investment in alternative channels. September 11, 2012 | ResearchBanks in Asia Pacific have slowed down their branch expansion significantly between 2009 and 2011 (10%) compared to 2007–2009 (16%) with the exception of Malaysia, Philippines and China, according to Asian Banker Research. Part of it can be explained by the difficult environment—2009 and 2010 were the two worst years in top line growth for most retail banks in the region, particularly in mature markets such as Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Hong Kong. Other reasons relate to the current focus of funnelling capital into building a mature mobile banking and payments infrastructure. Apart from the above, customer expectations are veering increasingly toward instant delivery and “always on” connectivity. The trend points toward a greater integration between consumer devices (person to person) and between consumer devices and bank devices to create a more intuitive and natural experience, leveraging touch, voice and movement rather than a point and click interface. Movenbank, the new financial start-up which is a social mobile cashless bank, is a development in this direction. Figure 1. Branch design formats
Second, the launch of applications such as UOB’s (Singapore) instant home loan approval via iPads at show flats where both buyers and real estate agents interact, and Westpac’s Mobile PayWay (Australia) in July 2012 allows small business merchants to process card payments in real time. This in effect gives small operators the ability to have payments processed on the go and keep track of their payments via their iPhones and brings real time payment transactions into the customer or business environment rather than having to go through cumbersome branch processes. These initiatives are spearheading the move towards out-of-branch customer engagement. Banks have started to pay attention to the fact that custome... Please login to read the complete article. If you already have an account, you can login now or subscribe/register.
Categories: Branch Banking, Innovation, Retail Banking, Technology & OperationsBranch Banking,Innovation,retail,technology, Branch Banking,Innovation,Retail Banking,Technology & Operations, Keywords:UOB, Westpac, Citibank, CRM, Workflow Optimisation UOB, Westpac, Citibank, CRM, Workflow Optimisation
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