Asia-Pacific Banking and Finance, Australia: Cognizant’s Head of Digital Banking Says Bank Branches Will Maintain an Important Role in Digital and Physical Channels

“Digital banking encompasses more than just web and application experiences,” says Steven DeLaCastro. “It includes the way banks seamlessly blend the physical and virtual touchpoints needed to create a consistent omnichannel experience.”  

“What better place to do that than within the branch,” he says. “Although branches will continue their decline over the next few years, they will maintain an important role in acquiring, retaining and serving customers across digital and physical channels.”

In his view, while the boundary-free workplace is alive and well, consumers still value a retail banking presence. “Banks that have attempted a branchless approach or reduced their footprint too quickly have experienced brand erosion and undermined the ability for customers to complete complex interactions and transactions,” he says.

He believes banks can use analytics to identify large concentrations of high-touch customers and examine the cross-channel behaviors of millennials and digital natives. Clearly, for simple transactions, branches are no longer the go-to option. For that, consumers have smartphone apps, secure web sites and strategically placed ATMs. But for everything else, DeLaCastro says, customers still head straight to a branch for new account openings and point-of-sale services.

“They are the only game in town when it comes to the personal support needed to resolve claims or provide advice on complex, high-value sales and financial advice,” he says. While he admits this could change as technology improves and millennials become the majority of customers, he believes the impact will only be felt several years, if not decades, from now. 

“Until then, branches will flourish, continue to provide credibility and remain critical to banks,” he says. According to DeLaCastro, retail bank branches will be fewer, smaller, smarter and more open and roaming bankers will move from one location to another, depending on customer need. More automated kiosks and digital signage will be put in place. 

For high-touch customers, banks will turn more and more to customer relationship management software to improve return on investment at expensive physical channels, from tracking and funneling their interactions, to automating the appropriate services, he points out. 

“Some branches have even experimented with geo-location services to contextualize personal appointments after identifying customers via their smartphones,” he says. “Since not everything can or should be done digitally, branches will continue to play an important role, albeit in limited and smaller-scale doses. Whatever happens, both banks and customers stand to gain, so long as the evolving services can be accomplished flawlessly between both digital self-service and relevant branches.”

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