News
The Big Tech Threat (Opportunity?)
In November 2019, Google announced that it was going to launch a checking account. The announcement elicited the typical frenzy in the press about how the Big Tech company and its fellow Gigantosauruses were going to put traditional banks out of business. But — surprise, surprise—that wasn’t the game plan. The plan was to partner…
Read MoreInside the Digital Bank Insurgency of 2020
The pandemic should get a lot of the credit for this, but 2020 was a good — no, make that a great — year for challenger banks and the broader group of digital banks. At the beginning of 2020, just 3 percent of U.S. consumers considered a digital bank to be their primary bank. By…
Read MoreFuel Your Fee Income with BaZing
Imagine your customers or members going to the pump and getting cheaper gas every single month. Think they’d appreciate your financial institution making that happen for them? Inspired by popular grocery store programs, StrategyCorps’ new BaZing Fuel program takes fuel rewards to a whole new level by letting financial institutions help consumers save money when…
Read MoreIs Your Financial Institution Feeling the Burn?
When the first so-called “challenger banks” like Simple and Moven appeared on the scene around 2010 they were heralded as “disruptors” that were going to put traditional banks and credit unions out of business. Why? The asserted logic was that they provided a better customer experience, were more customer-friendly in terms of pricing (i.e., no…
Read MoreReinventing the Checking Account
Is it “game over” for mid-size banks and credit unions when it comes to checking accounts? Are the threats from deposit displacement, P2P providers, Amazon, and megabanks insurmountable? No. Despite the prevalence of free checking accounts, many consumers express interest in switching to that hypothetical Amazon-offered bundled checking account we discussed earlier in this report.…
Read MoreIt’s Time to Kill Free Checking
Why would consumers show more interest in a fee-based account from Amazon than a free account? One reason is surely the value-added services bundled in. But there’s another reason: Consumers have learned (the hard way) that a free checking account isn’t really free. As one bank customer, commenting online, put it: “The issue isn’t wanting…
Read MoreThe Threats to Checking Accounts
Over the first half of the 2010s, the number of checks written in the United States declined from 41.9 billion to 17.1 billion — a nearly 60% drop. Bad news for checking accounts, right? Wrong. According to the FDIC, the percentage of U.S. households without a checking account dropped from 8.2% in 2011 to 7% in…
Read MoreCan You Honestly Say Your Checking Account is Modern?
Case in point: the rapid adoption and use of smartphones in today’s world have made consumers aware of two realities: Those devices break. Bad people are misusing other people’s personal data. What’s your checking products doing to help your customers/members with these realities? If the answer is nothing, here’s a few research points to start…
Read MoreIs Your Checking Account Worth Paying For?
To thrive in today’s financial marketplace and stand out from the pack, you must deliver checking products with benefits that consumers are demanding, many of which they are already buying from other companies, and your competition isn’t providing. To get started, take a look at what consumers are already using — and, in most cases,…
Read MoreThree reasons megabanks are getting more checking account growth than community financial institutions
Consumer surveys often find that small and mid-size banks and credit unions enjoy higher levels of trust and Net Promoter Scores than do the megabanks (i.e., Bank of America, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo)—yet Millennials are taking their business to megabanks and large regionals. Why might you ask? Well, there are three reasons: Millennials love…
Read More