Believe in Banking Podcast
In this special episode, Sean and Gina welcome back Luvleen Sidhu, Founder and CEO of BM Technologies, one of the largest digital banking platforms in the U.S. Luvleen talks about strategies for community institutions to accelerate their digital offering and acquire and serve diverse customers. She discusses growing BankMobile's banking-as-a-service (BaaS) model and how partnerships and commitment are empowering banks and credit unions to scale their organizations and get more retail banking customers. Sean and Gina ask Luvleen being a woman in the male-dominated banking industry and serving underserved and underbanked communities.
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Juliet D’Ambrosio discusses how FIs can leverage the untapped power of ITMs
Since their introduction, ITMs have met consumer needs for convenient transactions while providing a personalized experience. With only a quarter of banks currently using ITMs, 60% plan to implement more over the next three years. New data on ITM use from Adrenaline finds high consumer interest among all generations and an overall positive view of their experience amount current users. Watch above to learn our best practices for deploying ITMs.
We believe that banking can help us overcome this crisis and emerge stronger for it.
Fostering Financial Literacy Helps Banking Deliver Deeper Value(s)
How banks and credit unions are leveraging their expertise to empower consumers As the U.S. marks the anniversary of COVID shutdowns with renewed hope via …
Walmart, Walgreens and H&R Block Challenge the Status Quo in Banking
From big box to tax brands, disruption is coming fast and furious into the banking sector There has been no shortage of news about competition …
Why Banking Is Investing In ITMs
How humanized technology achieves experience for the consumer and efficiency for the bank In the Rise of Remote, we explored consumer requirements, especially during COVID, for …
Weekly Round-Up
Believe in Data
Outside View
Barnes & Noble’s new approach to store formats and localization reinvigorates the retailer
As we emerge slowly but surely into post-pandemic life, the retail sector is poised for a revived new normal. While months of online shopping had an unmistakable impact on consumer behavior, driving a 44% rise in e-commerce, brick-and-mortar still remains strong.
More than three-quarters of U.S. retail sales still occur in stores, and 71% of consumers plan to shop in physical locations at least weekly this Spring. As Joel Bines, managing director of consulting firm AlixPartners noted in an interview for CNBC: “The ecosystem of a store is going nowhere. At a macro level, the store is still critically important and will still be the epicenter of consumer activity for the foreseeable future.”
Despite a solid outlook for retail stores, the surge in consumer digital shopping behavior has retailers modifying their approach. How can brands serve people’s need to gather for in-person shopping experiences while delivering a more efficient retail network experience in which the physical channel plays a smaller but still centered and critical role? Bookseller Barnes & Noble’s innovative answer to store formats may provide an answer.
In 2018, B&N was already planning for this future. The retailer began deploying a greater variety of store formats, including a micro-store at just 700 square feet, scaled back from its traditional 26,000 sq ft sized store. In 2021, the retailer plans to open more of these stores, each tailored to its local community with merchandising and programming reflecting the unique needs of the people who shop there. As company CEO James Daunt explains, “You can open a really strong and successful 700-foot store. And we’re not telling them what to do. We’re asking them what they want us to do.”
This customer-centric, hyper-localized, and smaller format strategy reflects a broader retail trend, with Target opening its hundredth small-footprint store in 2019, and plans to open more in 2021. “We used to talk about retailers needing to close 50% of their stores. But it’s more of a fact now that retailers need to reduce their square footage by 50%,” says Michael Brown, a partner in the consulting firm Kearney, on CNBC.
In banking as the role of the branch evolves with transactions migrating digital but the majority of customers still wanting to be within close proximity of a physical location, banks and credit unions can look to retailers as a potential model for the future of branch formats. To learn more about how your financial institution can leverage smart branch network strategies to invest in and grow, email info@adrenaline.com.
Barnes & Noble’s new approach to store formats and localization reinvigorates the retailer
As we emerge slowly but surely into post-pandemic life, the retail sector is poised for a revived new normal. While months of online shopping had an unmistakable impact on consumer behavior, driving a 44% rise in e-commerce, brick-and-mortar still remains strong.
More than three-quarters of U.S. retail sales still occur in stores, and 71% of consumers plan to shop in physical locations at least weekly this Spring. As Joel Bines, managing director of consulting firm AlixPartners noted in an interview for CNBC: “The ecosystem of a store is going nowhere. At a macro level, the store is still critically important and will still be the epicenter of consumer activity for the foreseeable future.”
Despite a solid outlook for retail stores, the surge in consumer digital shopping behavior has retailers modifying their approach. How can brands serve people’s need to gather for in-person shopping experiences while delivering a more efficient retail network experience in which the physical channel plays a smaller but still centered and critical role? Bookseller Barnes & Noble’s innovative answer to store formats may provide an answer.
In 2018, B&N was already planning for this future. The retailer began deploying a greater variety of store formats, including a micro-store at just 700 square feet, scaled back from its traditional 26,000 sq ft sized store. In 2021, the retailer plans to open more of these stores, each tailored to its local community with merchandising and programming reflecting the unique needs of the people who shop there. As company CEO James Daunt explains, “You can open a really strong and successful 700-foot store. And we’re not telling them what to do. We’re asking them what they want us to do.”
This customer-centric, hyper-localized, and smaller format strategy reflects a broader retail trend, with Target opening its hundredth small-footprint store in 2019, and plans to open more in 2021. “We used to talk about retailers needing to close 50% of their stores. But it’s more of a fact now that retailers need to reduce their square footage by 50%,” says Michael Brown, a partner in the consulting firm Kearney, on CNBC.
In banking as the role of the branch evolves with transactions migrating digital but the majority of customers still wanting to be within close proximity of a physical location, banks and credit unions can look to retailers as a potential model for the future of branch formats. To learn more about how your financial institution can leverage smart branch network strategies to invest in and grow, email info@adrenalineagency.com.
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Data You Can Use
The Story: As post-pandemic switching activity is on the rise, people are looking to simplify their financial lives by pulling all their accounts together with a single provider who can serve all their needs – from checking and savings accounts to personal loan products and mortgages to investing and financial planning.
The Takeaway: Banks and credit unions have a significant opportunity to connect with consumers – acquiring new customers/members and deepening relationships with current ones – through smart marketing, personalized to consumers’ needs and life-stages; through exceptional customer experiences; and through messages, products and tools that focus on helping people achieve financial wellbeing across their lifetimes.
Source: Raddon Research Insights, 2020
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Investing in Women: Addressing COVID’s Unequal Impacts
With one in every four women considering exiting the workforce and the pandemic expanding the economic gender divide, there is little doubt about the global pandemic’s outsize impact on women’s lives. “Women around the world have been deeply affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has heightened inequalities – both at work and at home – that women face daily,” according to McKinsey’s report on the “harm the COVID-19 pandemic has wrought” on women’s employment.
With the pandemic deepening existing inequities and fueling an economic disruption in women’s lives seldom experienced before, what can be done to spark needed change? In the wake of this year’s International Women’s Day which is shining a spotlight on the unequal impact of the COVID-19 crisis on women – from their finances to their employment and beyond – financial institutions are stepping up with some support.
JP Morgan Chase is laser-focused on women’s financial issues and providing guidance and programs to help. In an ongoing series of stories like “How COVID Is Targeting Women… And What Your Household Can Do About It,” the financial services giant is balancing information and insights with actionable counsel. From budgeting to borrowing, the banking leader isn’t sugar-coating it, either. Sharing stats about financial inequality like real-world data on the wealth gap, Chase speaks directly to women’s concerns, empowering them in their defining role as CFO of their households.
Addressing the intersection of gender and racial inequality, Goldman Sachs is partnering with Black women-led organizations and making the largest-ever investment in Black women over the next ten years. CEO David Solomon says, “Given all that’s happened over the course of the last year, we’ve done a lot of talking at the firm – and even more listening – to help us figure out how we can do more to end the racial inequity…” With a decade-long commitment, the FI is providing resources and infrastructure, but not taking the spotlight, instead of letting Black leaders lead.
The One Million Black Women initiative grew out of “extensive research demonstrating that Black women are indeed the best financial investment.” Margaret Anadu, global head of sustainability and impact at Goldman, who became the company’s youngest female Black partner at 37, says, “The real legacy of this is that we create a framework that goes far beyond the walls of Goldman.” Focused on narrowing opportunity gaps for Black women, the program will help reduce economic barriers to growth, driving economic impacts across the entire U.S. economy.
To learn more about how your brand can embrace banking for good and how the financial industry is helping narrow the economic divide, email info@adrenalineagency.com.
Image Source: Essence, March 2021
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