Is St. George Bank really getting rid of online banking?
2014/05/22
Jacob Jegher
There was an interesting headline in the news last week that grabbed my attention - St George Bank to 'decommission' online banking for mobile. I read this article with great interest, particularly since St. George was such an early mover in online banking. The message is confusing, as is the quote from the bank's CIO:
"We will have our first implementation for tablet in October 2014, a second mobile implementation in March 2015, and then desktop sometime in 2015, so we'll have it as one system altogether."All this really tells me is that the bank is going to have a single digital platform and they are focusing on a mobile first approach. The next gen desktop implementation will arrive next year! This also begs the question of what really is mobile or desktop these days? Is a Windows 8.1 convertible unit a tablet or a desktop? If I access "online banking" through the web browser on my iPad is it online or mobile banking? It doesn't really matter. Customers expect to pick up their device of choice and have the appropriate experience. The burden is on the bank to provide it. The controversial nature of the headline certainly grabbed my attention. Online banking is far from dead. Feel free to add your comments, I'm interested in your opinion on the St. George bank announcement.
The headline, “St George Bank to ‘decommission’ online banking for mobile,” caught our attention as well! We are seeing strong growth in the mobile only and/or mobile first consumer – that group of consumers who have never or will never use online banking but rather rely totally on their mobile devices for banking transactions. For example, just amongst our customer base in the past year, we’ve seen growth from 12% to 19% using only their mobile devices for banking. We expect that number to continue to climb. That said, we’re also seeing deeper engagement and possible revenue opportunities with consumers who use online and mobile for banking. Our research shows that those consumers who use online and mobile for banking access their financial information 66 percent more frequently than online non-mobile users, providing additional opportunities to cross-sell.
We agree with your view that what matters most to consumers is that they can pick the device or channel of choice and have it work, regardless of what's making it work in the background. In fact, we think many consumers will use different devices and channels to do their banking at different times and what will be important in those cases is that their data is updated real-time and that all channels are aware of what the user has previously done in any of those channels.
[commented edited by moderator]