In case you missed the last 2 days, here’s a brief recap. If you did read yesterday, you can jump down to online account opening. Keep in mind, this is part of a larger strategy and some tie into one another, so you may want to review part 1 here and part 2 here.
Last Friday I released a letter to community financial institutions on surviving the “new normal”. This post is the final of three outlining 12 technologies that I feel will be vitally important for community banks to survive into the future.
It’s important that community banks and credit unions take the time to think about these things. Why?
- Examiners will expect to see that you’ve taken a hard look at your pandemic capabilities. What you had in place won’t be enough in the future.
- The next time this happens, your customers will have higher expectations of you. This time, it came without warning. This time, everyone had a legitimate excuse. That won’t be the case next time. Your larger competitors already have these things in place and will be more prepared to leverage them the next time around.
- Employees have had their eyes opened to the possibilities of a more flexible work from home environment. You’ll need to be able to compete with that or stand to lose some of your best people.
Some of the 12 might already be in place at your bank – if that’s the case, I want you to think about how well your current solution is working and can it be improved.
Some you’ve already considered and you or your board decided it just wasn’t the right time – if that’s the case, I encourage you to refresh those proposals and view the potential project through a new perspective.
Some you’ve never even considered – if that’s the case, I ask that you open your mind to what the needs of your customers, employees, and community will be in the future, where lockdowns are possible and social distancing is the norm.
One last thing: each of these technologies will need to be secured and each have their own nuances (and maybe that’s another post). Before you implement new technology, or make major changes to your existing solutions, you need to perform an adequate risk assessment, vendor due diligence, and apply appropriate controls. If you need help doing that or have any questions, please contact us at support@bedelsecurity.com.
Online Account Opening
Many community financial institutions (FIs) found their account opening diminish greatly during the COVID-19 lockdown. Some would argue that people just weren’t opening new accounts, but we know that can’t last forever. It will be essential to have an online account opening presence for both deposits and loans in the “new normal”.
The more streamlined you can make this process, the better. Online platforms that automate the process not only improves efficiency on your end, it makes the customer experience better as well.
Numerous FIs use an online portal to start the new account process (i.e. it will allow the customer to fill out the application, but end there). That’s not enough, it needs to be end-to-end. Ask yourself: “can a customer open a new DDA or loan without setting foot in one of our branches or meeting with one of our staff?”
You may need to reference the Secure File Sharing or Electronic Signatures sections from yesterday to make this happen, but it’s very do-able.
If you’re looking to offer a high-touch experience, how can you incorporate your Video Conferencing System from Day 1 to allow for customers to schedule a video call or screensharing session with one of your CSRs or Lenders to help with the process?
Cash Recyclers
You may be asking yourself: “what do cash recyclers have to do with the post-pandemic landscape?” And the answer is efficiency.
Remember in the original letter, I mentioned that you would have to look at managing everything differently, including shifting staff to focus on supporting digital services? The technologies covered over the past couple days will mean that more people will be needed in your call center, more people will be needed to support these new services and technologies.
And you make that happen with efficiency at your teller line.
Cash recyclers can make you more efficient by reducing transaction time, and by reducing the need for additional staff for dual control.
You’ve probably experienced a bottleneck at your drive-thru during lobby shutdowns; transaction speed becomes so important in that case to reduce customer wait times. As lobbies re-open, that same efficiency can also help by reducing the number of tellers need to handle the volume of foot traffic.
Cash recyclers can also reduce the need for dual control throughout the day because they act as their own separate vault with the computer system providing oversight and balancing controls. Load them up in the morning and a single person can operate a cash recycler without the need for purchasing cash throughout the day or even balancing at the end of the day.
What could you do with an extra person at each location?
Digital Marketing
One thing I don’t see a lot of community FIs doing consistently is digital marketing. And I get the reason for resistance: we don’t want to bother our customers.
But as we move to an increasing adoption of digital channels for banking activities, it only makes sense to integrate our marketing efforts in these channels as well.
On top of that, the conventional, physical, channels have been limited (and will continue to be) due to COVID-19. Fairs, parades, and events are all closed for the foreseeable future. If you’re like some community FIs that rely heavily on that strategy, it will be tough to stay in front of your existing customers and get in front of new prospects.
Some things that FIs will need to start thinking about include: CRM systems, email marketing, text marketing, and using those systems to drive traffic to your Online Account Opening Systems.
ITMs (Interactive Teller Machines)
If you had ITMs in place prior to COVID-19, you probably saw record transaction volume on them during the lockdown. If you didn’t, you may have wished you had them in place to help spread out the load.
An ITM is a virtual teller appliance that can be placed anywhere and is connected to a call center in a central location of your choosing. It’s a combination of a Zoom call and an ATM in one package and it’s like they were made for social distancing.
They can be used as an ATM, but because of the human interaction via video, the ITM has so many more capabilities. The ITM can be used to cash checks (to the penny), open new accounts, make loan payments, and just about anything else you can do at a teller window. And while customers can be authenticated with a card and PIN, like your ATM, they can also be authenticated using conventional methods like a photo ID, just like at the teller window.
From a staffing standpoint, ITMs can help you do more with the same headcount. Because CSRs are moved to a central call center that can serve any of your ITM locations, their downtime is reduced between transactions. This means that 5 ITMs could be managed by as few as 3 people.
Banks and Credit Unions have been using ITMs to extend their geographical footprint, extend business hours, and for gaining staffing efficiencies. In the post-pandemic landscape, ITMs will be able to do all that as well as adding a social distancing alternative for your customers.
Conclusion
This is the last post of this series; I hope you’ve found them helpful. Due to popularity, we will be combining all 3 days into a single resource in the next couple of weeks. Keep an eye out for our email letting you know when that is available in the Resources section of our website.
Please contact us with any questions at support@bedelsecurity.com.
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About Bedel Security
Our mission here at Bedel Security is focused around service. We want to serve community banks and credit unions to our very best ability and that’s an ever-evolving process.
Bedel Security was founded in March of 2015 by Chris Bedel with the dream of making a bigger impact by doing three things:
- Serve cybersecurity expertise to community banks and credit unions across the nation.
- Provide great opportunities to our employees.
- And give back to our community.
The bottom line is that we want to help as many financial institutions as we can, in any way we can. So how can we help you?