The Story:
Bank branches continue to be the primary driver of new-to-bank sales, representing the dominant revenue channel for institutions and the primary way consumers open new accounts. Though digital account opening may be an easy-button for customers, trends data shows that for financial institutions, digital acquisition results in higher attrition rates and lower profitability than serving customers in bank branches.
The Takeaway:
For all the talk of branch channels disappearing, institutions know first-hand that the physical retail channel offers their biggest opportunity. “The long-running debate over whether branches are dead, dying… misses the key point,” says The Financial Brand. “No business – banking included – succeeds or fails because of delivery channel efficiency. It lives on sales.” And on that front, branch networks are far and away the “champs of retail banking.”
Sources: Celent, “Branch Transformation Research Poll” and The Financial Brand, “Digital Banking Has a Long Way to Go to Surpass Branch Sales,” October, 2022