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Caffeine-fueled dreams of a new kind of branch
What will the branch of the future really look like? Let's think outside the brick-and-mortar box for a moment.
December 11, 2015 by Tom Harper
All this talk of upheaval in the banking world is driving me to drink ...
more coffee.
I have to jump-start my brain in order to keep up with the daily barrage of fintech news.
If you're like me, you find some of the headlines astonishing. Innovation is flowing — even in the staid and conservative world of retail banking.
Some would say that the fintech sea change has been building under the surface, like the swell of a tidal wave. So far, the response by forward-thinking banks and credit unions has been a mix of IT investment, mobile innovation, new customer experience paradigms and tech acquisitions.
Financial institutions are also reimagining the branch, and rightly so. Foot traffic at bank branches has been on a steady decline in recent years. But the branch is where most new product sales occur. Something's got to give.
What's more, some FIs have built up real estate footprints that rival leading retail and restaurant brands in size. So if people still like to get out to shop and eat at these places what do we have to do to get their feet across the branch threshold every now and then?
What will the branch of the future really look like? Let's think outside the brick-and-mortar box for a moment ...
The 'coffee branch'
What do you get when you cross a coffee shop with a bank branch?
You might say "Star-bucks" or "Starbanks" (or for those of you in the upper Plains states, "Cari-bucks" or "Bank-ibou" — the possibilities really are endless).
Or you might simply say "coffee branch."
I proposed this idea to a colleague and she said she had seen a news story a couple years ago about a bank doing something similar. Not surprising!
Think about it:
- "bankistas" serving coffee and bank customer service;
- self-service stations where customers can study, read, or bank on a touchpad embedded in the table;
- glass-windowed meeting rooms where customers can gather together, or where bankistas can meet privately with customers;
- a mobile banking app complete with coffee ordering capability;
- coffee credits with every teller transaction, or a complementary coffee coupon on the back of every self-service receipt;
- ATMs next to Keurig machines — the ultimate self-service experience!; and, most importantly,
- a resurgence of relationship-driven retail banking and branch foot traffic.
What other ideas do you have for this branch? Grab a cup of Joe and meet me at @ATMMarketplace. I'd love to know what you think.
