ValueBank Texas in Corpus Christi is trying to woo younger retail customers by offering as many Internet services as possible.
In the past year the $145 million-asset commercial bank has added services such as online banking, bill pay, statements, and check imaging largely to bring in consumers in their 20s and early 30s — tomorrow’s entrepreneurs.
“Younger people today are looking for faster results, so we’re trying to keep the technology moving forward to attract them,” said Scott Heitkamp, ValueBank’s president and chief executive officer.
In targeting the under-35 set, the bank is defying a national trend that finds younger people preferring larger banks to community banks by a good margin.
In a survey the Independent Community Bankers of America is releasing today, 35.4% of respondents between 18 and 35 years old said they use large or regional banks as their primary financial institution, while 21.4% use community banks; 18.4% said they were not sure if theirs was a national or community bank, and 22.6% said they use credit unions.
By comparison, 28.3% of the respondents over 35 use community banks as their primary financial institutions, 30.8% use large banks, 20.1% credit unions, and 18.7% said they were not sure what category their banks fell into.
Market and Communications Inc. in Rockville, Md., conducted the telephone survey of more than 1,000 consumers in February.
For both age groups, community bank customers were just as likely as national bank customers to say they were very satisfied with their institution. More than 95% of the community bank customers said they were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied.
For older respondents, convenience and service topped the list of reasons why they chose particular banks. On the other hand, younger people were equally likely to consider the cost of fees, interest rates offered on deposits or charged on loans, and the availability of other services as they would consider convenience and service in choosing their primary institution.
Younger people were twice as likely than older people (30.2% versus 15.2%) to use a bank’s Web site to learn more about the bank.
On average, the respondents had accounts with 3.7 financial institutions, and had their account at the primary one for just over 14 years; only 10% had switched banks in the past two years. Most (84.8%) of the respondents said they had a checking account at their primary institution, 51.6% said they had a savings account, while just 9.6% said they had a credit card with that institution, and only 8% had a mortgage loan.
