Natwest has just announced 128 branch closures because of the ‘dramatic shift’ from face-to-face to online and mobile transactions. Nothing new there… 32 branches went last year because of ‘increased use of digital banking’ and 300 back in 1996, as it rolled out new technology.
It has been a 20 year bear market for high street branches and a 20 year bull market for online banking but it’s still hard to know where we are in the cycle. Especially with the Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2) unleashing a new wave of data-driven innovation next year. Banks will be required to share customer account information with other financial services companies (when explicit customer consent has been given).
The guiding principle for the next stage of development has to be to consider where the customer is with their behaviour and whether service providers are keeping pace.
Online investing is at a much earlier stage than online banking but almost everyone in our sector speaks ‘digital’ these days. It’s a top priority for most companies, with 92% of D2C propositions having hired someone specifically to lead the digital side of the business, according to our Digital Benchmarking research. Mobile is a ‘very high priority’ for 75% but mobile optimisation often stops short of logged-in account pages and mobile transactions at the moment. Mobile banking has gone further than this.
Over in the marketing department, the focus on digital is also ramping up, which is evident from this year’s very digital ISA season – we’re seeing online advertising from old and new D2C companies like AJ Bell, Barclays, Fidelity, Hargreaves Lansdown, Moneyfarm, NetWealth, Nutmeg, Santander and Scalable Capital; but Tilney is in there as well promoting high-end financial planning.
Marketing is fiendishly technical these days with paid search, programmatic and website UX getting the lion’s share of budget. 84% of D2C companies are increasing their digital spend this year with marketing automation getting particular attention.
We will be looking at all this and more in this year’s D2C and Digital Investing Conference on 29th June in London. In particular, we will be focusing on:
- Which business models will make headway in 2017? Traditional DIY platforms (e.g. Hargreaves Lansdown) versus banks (e.g. Barclays) versus fund managers going direct (e.g. Vanguard).
- Is the consumer becoming more price sensitive? We’re seeing more interest in fixed price propositions which Interactive investor is likely to offer at scale following the TD acquisition. This week they’ve brought in a new CEO to deliver that.
- How can you get organised for success in digital? Changing culture, building internal capability, deciding priorities etc.
Platforum research will be complemented by content from our sister company, Econsultancy, the digital marketing experts, and Paul Lewis, of Radio 4 Money Box fame, will be talking about the problems of engaging customer with pensions and investments.
For more information or to register, please click here.