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A positive spin around branches will proliferate, as will talk about wearable tech. Oh, and expect tons of M&A -- between banks and nonbanks.
March 17 -
As many young people flee Wall Street for Silicon Valley, senior bank executives are returning to old-school recruiting tactics. Catherine Bessant, who oversees global technology and operations for Bank of America, in an interview detailed the changes she has made to attract tech talent.
March 14 -
You might expect Manolo Sanchez, the CEO of BBVA Compass, to renounce traditional branches since his bank is spending $117 million on the online-only startup Simple. But he joined other senior bank executives in defending the branch as "still relevant."
March 14 -
Banks of all sizes are struggling to increase the revenues and profits that they can eke out of their retail operations while trying to elbow their competitors out of the same turf. To do so, bankers need to face some hard truths about their branches, technology and M&A ambitions.
March 11
Amazon.com has
The Internet giant was the virtual guest of honor this month at
"Amazon was conceived around the use of data and the customer experience. Banks have not grown up that way," Catherine Bessant, the global head of technology and operations for Bank of America (BAC), said in an interview, calling the ecommerce company "the most visible example of using data to customize a customer experience."
Bessant was one of many bankers to cite what SunTrust (STI) senior executive Rilla Delorier called "the Amazon model" as a possible savior for the industry. Banks are slowly improving the technology they offer, but they are still struggling to figure out how best to use the massive amounts of data that they have on their customers. Meanwhile, competition is fierce, low interest rates are
"Amazon's not calling you to say, 'Do you want something?' They're presenting it in a way online, they're using the data to understand what people want," Delorier, who oversees SunTrust's consumer banking strategy, said in an interview.
"For banks it's new, so it's hard to take the leap of faith to invest in a big piece of technology or a big piece of data and integrate systems," she says. "The biggest piece of work ahead of us is how do we take what we know about the client .. and use that to inform the interaction."
Manolo Sanchez, the chief executive of BBVA Compass, also brought up Jeff Bezos' online behemoth in a discussion of how banks could improve their use of data and technology.
There is "a concept that's common in Internet retail, which is 'propensity to buy' and the algorithms that come with that. I think we are at the infancy of understanding those business models in banks," Sanchez said in an interview. "And that's what Amazon and all the internet retailers were founded on. They can tell you what you need to buy next."
