Welcome to a Bank New World

"The biggest danger in times of unrest is not the unrest, but to face it with yesterday's instruments.“ (Peter F. Drucker)

The most crucial test in the history of global finance has been weathered. "The financial crisis" has taught us the following: "Prudent and cool-headed acting is more difficult, but also more necessary, than ever before". Therefore, it is important not to lose one's head but to understand that it is time for action in order to obtain a sustainable development in the financial sector.

" In future, businesses will exist through the dialogue with the customer - this must start from the bottom up and not from the top down"

(www.cluetrain.com)

In particular, this means: Financial service providers have to leave their penthouse offices and talk to the people with whom they want to do business. Dialogue is still a foreign term for most banks. The customer is inundated with offers and arguments, which mostly have but one goal: sales.
An important question: How can the private customer domain be designed in a future-proof way in times of changing markets? For banks, one of the conclusions to be drawn from the crisis is that they have to question their role in society and in the lives of their customers and to redefine it. Here, it is important to present oneself as trustworthy partner in the everyday life of the customer, to consider relevant themes, which revolve mostly around life, work and old age in private customer transactions , and to redefine them.

What is trust, actually?
 

Trust is the capital that considerably defines the value of a given relationship. If personal trust were traded at the stock exchange, exchange rates for most banks would probably be very low. The main reason for this is that customers perceive the protection of their interests as being less important than those of the banks. Treading new paths outside of sales is new territory for most banks.
The central issue here is not the sale of the products but the understanding of the life and circumstances of their customers. This puts the whole process of financial service into a new perspective, creating a completely new competition, which cannot - as previously - be won with mass media addresses and well-packaged advertising messages. This competition is taking place in every branch and with every customer. Only those who are offering well-fitting "interfaces" and services will be able to retain customers in the long-term. It is not short-term success that is required but, rather, long-term solutions, which the customer will happily recommend to others. Only then will we manage to effectively win over the internet-savvy persons with their changed needs structures and thus permanently manage to generate new customer bases. The term "prosumer" moves more and more into the foreground. This generation is expecting individual, flexible and quick solutions and does not want to be approached with the same traditional methods.

"You can't earn money with trust - only with selling!"

(independent banking consultant about the topic of trust in 2010)

The active involvement of customers in the innovation process is of extraordinary importance. Real added value can be created only together with him/her- because products and services are really only offers to create values.
This begs the question:

What would a more prudent bank look like?
 

Imagine a bank that can communicate with its customers in any way they desire. A bank that is offering information on request about due instalments, special payments, account statements, deadlines, incoming payments or new refinancing options. A financial service provider enabling a high quality dialogue, without long waiting times and on a level unknown thus far. Somebody, who - in the interest of customers - is keeping an eye on personal spending, private balance sheets who is generating and administering, discussing savings plans or mutually developing new and individual ideas - all of this tailor-made. What kind of bank would it be: offering its customers the opportunity to discuss whatever moves them?

That would be a more prudent bank.
 

A bank that is listening, that takes itself back, but is always available and thus winning in proximity, so that it can re-establish trust with its customers.

Have you ever considered that banks and Google are in competition with each other?
 

Google is one of the leading businesses as far as offering uncomplicated and intuitive solutions are concerned. The approach consists of finding innovations, which contribute towards serving the needs of the people.

Thus, Google would firstly consider questions of the banking infra structure.

• How do I guide my customers quicker and more efficiently towards reaching their goal?
• How can I make my actions more transparent towards the customer?
• How do I get closer to his/her interests?

Is this only a vision?
Maybe Google is already working on it. It would be imaginable....

One thing is certain: Google already knows more about banking customers than the banks do themselves and they are really also only a "click" away. 

"The concept of the problem is more important than the concept of the solution; since the question contains more than the answer."

(Walther Rathenau)

From our perspective, the following questions need to be answered:

• Consumer or prosumer - what do tomorrow's customers look like?
• How to develop innovations, products and offers that are relevant for the customer?
• How can a bank react to the digital change?
• Which challenges and possibilities result from the cooperation of marketing and sale?
• Do banks know what is, and especially how they are, being discussed in blogs and social networks?

The answers cannot be established across the board for all banks. Yet, merely the fact that the important and correct questions are being asked already means the first step in the right direction towards dialogue.

"Being conservative does not mean to hang on to what always was, but to hang on to what is always valid.“


(Heiner Geißler, 2010)

To connect the "always valid" with the "new" - that is the mission: a mission that is to be fulfilled. For those who are "comfortable" this is at first plenty uncomfortable - but it is necessary in order to get rid of antiquated ways of thinking. Obsolete methods and fossilised work flows impede the finding of solutions and urgently need to be lifted to a higher level of understanding. The required added-value proximity can be developed only through ideas that the "customer" perceives as being truly relevant.

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Contact:
Sven John
Sven.John@greenkern.com