Kristin R. MoyerOn day three at BAI Payments Connect, I attended a session about competing for deposits and relationships in turbulent times. A couple things about this session stood out to me.
Data shows that many US banks are waiting to innovate depending on what happens with regulatory change. What bothered me about this the most is the implication that innovation is dependent upon external factors. Innovation is not something a bank should do at one point in time. US Bank is a great example of a bank that is constantly innovating, constantly testing and piloting in payments. They do not place big bets, but rather innovate continuously.
Another thing that stood out about some of the data I saw was that there is a disconnect between what banks are thinking, and what consumers are thinking in the US right now. For example, banks are much more confident that customers are preparing to resume normal financial behavior than customers are. That’s a big disconnect. Also, customer trust in banks is very low, which is not a surprise, but the disconnect is that trust is even lower than banks think it is. And this is particularly true for large US banks. Customers even went so far as to say that large banks do not deliver basic financial services such as checking as well as regional and local financial institutions.
At Gartner, we believe that payments is a key way banks can begin to rebuild customer trust. We have done research that shows that consumers do trust their debit card provider and even their credit card provider more than non-bank payment providers. Data I saw today shows that banks are planning to invest in customer experience. Not that improving customer experience is bad, but banks need to get a better handle on the levers that will really improve the customer experience. Payments is one of those areas.
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