Article

Do Starbucks and Uber offer the right experience for banks?

The changing nature of consumer behavior in recent years is raising major questions regarding privacy, loyalty and perceived value in banking, according to a panel of experts at the 2019 BCX Summit.

Steve Mast of Delvinia moderated a BCX panel that included Fidelity's Chris Ferris, Euromonitor's Ryan Tuttle and BMO's Maja Neable.

October 2, 2019 by David Jones — Editor, Networld Media Group

The banking industry has gone through significant changes in recent years, in part due to major shifts in consumer culture, leading one panel of experts at the 2019 Bank Customer Experience Summit in Chicago last week to tackle the question of whether the success of Starbucks or ride sharing service Uber can — or should — be replicated by the banking industry. 

Steve Mast, president and chief innovation officer of Toronto-based Delvinia, a digital automation and consulting firm, posed the provocative question to a panel to determine whether those business models are the right experience to provide to banking customers. 

"I think there's a lot to be said for speed and convenience," said Chris Ferris, president and CEO of Fidelity Bank in Louisiana. "I think that's very important to keep our eye on."

For example, a Starbucks customer can order a latte before they leave from home and have it ready for them when they arrive at the Starbucks location. 

He said that speed and convenience should not represent 100% of what drives the industry, noting that the banking industry needs to focus on personalization and adding value to the customer. 

He said if that value takes an hour or takes a week, the ability to deliver that added value to a customer is more important than just the issue of speed. 

Mast then raised the question with another panelist about consumer loyalty and whether there is value in that equation, which raised the question about convenience in banking.  

"When you go really deep down, money is so personal and private," said Maja Neable, chief marketing officer, personal and business banking, North America, at BMO Financial Group. "Not just personal, it's very, very private. There are aspects of money you don't want to share with anybody."

"On the one hand it is so important but on the other hand so really secret," she said. "People don't really want to talk about money."

She said the concerns about privacy mean that banks need to provide a higher level of human interaction with their customers while offering them something that is unique and protects their privacy at the same time. 

However, Ryan Tuttle, senior analyst, consumer finance at Euromonitor International, said that among the new generation of customers who lived through the economic recession, they are more willing to have open discussions over money and are more willing to consider different options, such as using Apple Card for managing their money and credit. 

Cover image courtesy of Networld Media Group.

About David Jones

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David Jones is the editor of Mobile Payments Today. He is a veteran business and technology journalist, with three decades of experience writing about business travel, real estate and technology.

Since 2015 he covered a range of technology stories for the ECT News Network, which includes the E-Commerce Times, TechNewsWorld, LinuxInsider and CRM Buyer, writing about cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, machine learning, open source computing and privacy issues among others. He recently covered FinTech issues for PYMNTS.com.

He worked as a staff writer for Bloomberg Business News and an online reporter for Crain’s New York Business. He has written for numerous media organizations, including Reuters, The New York Times, The Real Deal, Continental, City Limits and The Nation. 

He was previously awarded the George Washington Williams Fellowship for Journalists of Color by the Independent Press Association.