It would be easy to rationalize the number of bank branches across the industry and the rise of mobile bank offerings points to mobile banking  replacing more traditional forms of consumer bank interaction. Many, however, would argue that that's a shallow interpretation of what's going on.

The reality is that mobile banking is occurring at a time when two legacy interaction modes--traditional branches and online banking--are still thriving. Novantas has identified a group of tech-savvy customers that it dubs the "ultraconnected," notes Mobile Banker. Interestingly and somewhat counter-intuitively, people in this group use in-branch services more than their less electronically adept peers.

"They are also more attached to quality branch service. More than half of the 'ultraconnected' group said they would be reluctant to change banks because they have ‘personal relationships' with the staff - a significantly higher proportion than among even ‘branch traditionalist' peers. And only 5 percent of them list ‘substandard mobile banking' as a credible reason for leaving a bank."

So the key going forward may be to find ways to position mobile services as critical value-added extensions of branch and online banking. Perhaps such services could be used to better tether tech-savvy customers to either a branch or the Web site. That's easier said than done of course. In any case, the ROI and business case gets a bit more complex when you take this to heart.

For more:
- here's the article

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