The View | The future of banking will include brick-and-mortar branches
‘Even in a digital world, we believe that customers will continue to need relationship managers and specialists who can provide them advice and support in making these critical financial decisions’
Alibaba, Amazon, Uber, Grab and Airbnb, to name a few, are redefining customer expectations. Harnessing the power of integrated, digital platforms, they offer frictionless transactions and seamless service. Concurrently, clients are spending a significant amount of time on social media and more broadly across various digital ecosystems.
The ability to manage virtually day-to-day needs from the smartphone in your hand via any number of apps – social media, transport, weather, ordering a pizza, paying for sundries – has significantly raised the bar in what customers now expect from every interaction in the digital economy of today.
Consumers naturally now expect the same of banking – and rightly so.
This has important implications for Citi’s retail bank franchise in Asia, which manages 17 of the 19 markets where Citi has retail operations globally. We are already seeing a generational shift in how consumers want to access financial services and the rapid adoption of digital banking in many markets that are predisposed to using mobile technology rather than brick-and-mortar branches.
We are seeing a significant shift in where our customers are spending time, whether they are communicating or consuming. We are intensely focused on understanding this and building partnerships in key ecosystems to ensure as a bank we are present and relevant for clients in their digital world, as much as in the past, one wanted to be physically close, which led to large-scale branch networks.
