Banks keep shaving off the number of minutes they say it takes to
The topic came up during Michelle Moore's
"If it takes two minutes or less to open a checking account on the phone, why is it not that process in the branch?" she said as an answer to an audience question. "The checking account opening experience should not be a 45 minute, hour conversation, printing all kinds of materials and typing in 40 fields of information. The application should be about five minutes. The rest of the time should be the conversation."
In-branch account opening is typically handled by teller management systems, whereas online account opening is on a separate platform, points out David Schiff, head of retail and consumer banking at West Monroe. The know-your-customer and anti-money-laundering checks that were optimized for fluidity online have not all migrated to the branch. Financial institutions may be hesitant to devote the time and resources to changing their systems and re-training branch staff.
There are also infrastructure limitations.
"I was surprised at how many banks don't have public WiFi in their branches," said Schiff.
Some banks, including Bank of America and F.N.B. Corp. in Pittsburgh, are taking steps to upgrade their branch technology. Despite advances in online and mobile account opening technology, people sometimes still prefer coming to the branch for guidance or advice, or may want to start the process in one channel and finish in another.
Banks can capitalize on these face-to-face opportunities to deepen their relationships. This ability to make a sales pitch in person is one reason banks still prize branch account opening.
"That initial touchpoint is the most valuable and why sometimes account opening takes so long," said Schiff. "There is a perverse incentive for banks to make that process feel advisory and mechanical because it gives them an opportunity to have more conversations while the system is processing."
Moreover, "There is still a mentality at a lot of banks that most information they can collect about the customer is through that face-to-face interaction," said Schiff.
Some people just feel more comfortable having a person on standby.
"I like to ask a lot of questions," said
FNB has made leaps in digital account opening that it plans to integrate into its branches. The bank's
But the ultimate vision for the $44.1 billion-asset bank is weaving digital and traditional channels together for a consistent user experience, or what Delie Jr. calls "Clicks-to-Bricks."
"A lot of what you have observed [concerning redundant and paper-based processes] is what drove our whole strategy," said Delie Jr. "The goal for Clicks-to-Bricks is to have the same type of speed and interaction capability we have with mobile and online in our physical branches."
Today, users of the in-branch kiosk can send their eStore cart to their email address or inform the branch that they'd like to check out there. Relationship bankers are also equipped with tablets they can use to educate customers on products. If customers want to open an account in a branch, for now they have to go through FNB's traditional platform with a banker; alternatively, they can do so on their personal device digitally with the assistance of a banker. (There is no public WiFi, however.) A next step is to embed more of these fast, slick eStore capabilities into account-opening technology in the branch.
FNB is also working on other upgrades to make the whole eStore experience smoother, such as letting customers upload a photo of their identification as part of KYC. The bank plans to introduce account-opening capabilities into its video teller machines.
First Premier Bank in South Dakota revamped its online sign-up process to allow customers to name the banker who referred them. This helps bankers overcome their reluctance about digital accounts and lets them start relationships with new customers.
Bank of America, meanwhile, is bridging the benefits of in-person guidance with the ease of using a personal device.
"One of the biggest challenges when a prospect or a customer new to the bank comes to open an account is, if you don't have any data on them, the associate often has to do a lot of data entry to open the account," said Ryan Furey, digital executive for retail at Bank of America. "It becomes slow and laborious. But when you think about digital, newer technology and capabilities add a lot of convenience and make it more personal for the individual."
When someone discusses new accounts with an associate in a branch, the banker can now push any consumer products they recommend to the "saved items" list in the customer's mobile app. (A new customer would have to first download the app and build a basic profile.) The customer will receive a notification that something was added to their saved items. From there they can begin the application on their phone, with the banker standing by in case they have questions. Public WiFi is available for customers.
Bank of America has done this for existing customers for several years, and started piloting it for new customers last year before expanding the capability to all branches. A higher percentage of new customers want to open an account in a branch compared with existing customers.
One question banks must contend with is how to handle the
"It's less common post-Wells Fargo, but still common enough to be viewed as typical in the market," said Schiff. Incentive programs can be tied to opening target volumes of specific products at the individual banker, branch or market level. Bank of America was recently
FNB geocodes customers who arrive via a digital channel and gives credit to the nearest branch. It is also converting tellers into "relationship bankers" who are equipped to handle a broad range of consumer banking tasks and whose positions are incented differently.
At Bank of America, "When they engage with the client through the saved items list and make recommendations, we can account for that within our internal systems that they were involved with the sales process," said Furey.
Another issue banks want to solve is letting people start the process in one channel and finishing in another.
"For a number of years this is something account opening vendors have been focusing on," said Mark Schwanhausser, director of digital banking at Javelin Strategy & Research. "This idea that if we can create a single platform where someone starts online or mobile, they can resume it there, or if they go into a branch, the material is there. There are not two systems for processing."
Delie Jr. said it's a critical piece of FNB's strategy. Furey said Bank of America started out by testing for situations where someone was interested in a product, but needed time to think about it. Adding it to their saved items list made it easy to retrieve at home.
"It's not enough to make your process faster, to take it from six minutes to five minutes," said Schwanhausser. "The important thing is to get them in the right product, get them engaged and get deeper relationships as quickly as possible. Ideally a banking relationship goes for decades. How can you start that off on the right foot?"
Even purely
"Some banks have put in really slick digital solutions for online account opening, but it may take ten to 12 days for the account to fully open because they are verifying things like my driver's license picture," said Schiff, who regularly opens bank accounts for his work. "If I weren't doing it to experiment and understand what the process was, I would probably abandon it and open my account somewhere else."
