Abandonment rates during customer onboarding ballooned in the past two years, according to a new survey. It’s quite an uncomfortable read. To say nothing of another report, revealing that sales opportunities in mobile banking remain untapped most of the time.

Banks lose half of to-be clients in onboarding

A new survey by Signicat shows that retail banks in Europe now lose more than half of their potential customers at the on-boarding stage, a worrying increase of 35% in just two years. No wonder, really. As many as 72% of customers would be much happier with an all-digital on-boarding system.

But all’s not lost. Digitally on-boarded consumers are more loyal to banks and would be happy to try more services. The introduction of digital ID schemes is key in the sector: 52% of Europeans would be open to signing up for additional products from a bank that doesn’t insist on paper-based identity.

Mobile sales opportunities remain untapped

Mobile banking may be one of the most active segments but financial institutions are not doing a very good job of onboarding and cross-selling this base, The Financial Brand says. The numbers tell an alarming story: less than 25% of leading banks perform sales and marketing within their apps and even the ability to open new services is limited to less than 30%.

Banks simply cannot afford to ignore mobile anymore. Product offers and engagement services can be communicated to the right customers at the right time at a low cost.  Meaning higher organic growth, customer retention and customer satisfaction – and ultimately more revenue.

Do customers really want invisible banking?

Invisible banking is when mobile apps, like Uber or iTunes, make payment as easy as possible, basically doing it all for the customer. And it has been the talk of the town in the financial services sector for a while now. As Chris Skinner explains, it certainly makes life easier but some important  questions remain.

For starters, it makes it far too easy for the customer to make impulse purchases. And when it comes to branding, being invisible is surely not a good thing for a financial institution, either. The problem is that customers will only remember the names of Apple, Uber or Lyft, basically degrading banks to utility providers.

Mobile banking to overtake online by 2019

More people will use smartphone apps than computers for banking by as early as next year, industry analyst CACI forecasts. Last year, 22 million customers managed their current accounts on their phone in the UK alone, and that figure is expected to grow to 35 million by 2023.

It looks like 2019 will be the year when mobile banking finally overtakes internet banking in terms of the number of users. What does this mean for banks? They might want to go back to the drawing board and rethink the location and number of their branches.

 


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