Canada’s financial institutions have been developing alternate delivery channels for their services over the past several years, not only for customer convenience but as a way to cut the high real estate cost of branches.
Throughout this process they’ve found that the future of banking lies both in new technology and in the resurgence of some old-fashioned methods and the notion of value.
With the national rollout of personal computer banking just around the corner, financial institutions are also introducing programs that bring them in closer contact with their customers.
Pat Palmer, senior vice-president customer delivery and quality for the Royal Bank of Canada, says it’s important for customers to have access to ‘high-touch’ as well as high-tech service.
He says the bank’s blueprint for developing its delivery channels came from extensive cross-country research with its customers that looked at both demographics and buying habits.
Across the board, Palmer says, the overwhelming priority for customers is accessibility to services.
Ron Hodges, vice-president direct services for Toronto-Dominion Bank, says, ‘Our view on so-called alternate channels is that customers don’t like to be told which one to use.
‘Our approach is to build various easy-to-use, cheap access methods for our clients.’
He says the cost of services is a big factor for td customers who feel, in the case of self-serve banking, if they’re pushing the buttons they shouldn’t have to pay for it.
At td, the Green Machine is carrying the bulk of the bank’s total transactions with by far the dominant transaction being cash withdrawals.
For other services, such as mortgages and loans, customers still seem to prefer visiting the branch.
In the new technology area, the company is currently testing its telephone service, TD Bankline, in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ont., while its personal computer service is still being developed and tested internally.
Canada Trust was the first financial institution with telephone banking when it launched EasyLine in January, 1993.
Chuck Hounsell, assistant vice-president of distribution development for Canada Trust, says EasyLine continues to be a popular service with nearly two million calls being received each month.
Canada Trust is also moving quickly into personal-computer banking.
Hounsell says pc banking is what Canada Trust customers want. He says since the launch of EasyLine, not a day has passed that a customer hasn’t asked when it will be available.
Canada Trust currently has account information available over the Internet at its Web site. To make sure this method is secure, users have a log-on code and their names and account numbers remain anonymous on-line.
Canada Trust’s pc banking product, CT Connect, has been in test in Burlington, Ont. since October 1995.
Rollout is imminent and Hounsell says there should be some announcements next month.
At Royal Bank, as a result of its consumer research, the focus has been on three broad areas.
Two of the more visible channels, self-serve banking and Royal Direct, the umbrella for all direct access services, are both undergoing major changes.
The bank’s development and expansion of high-touch channels is less well-known.
These channels include Royal Bank’s rapidly growing network of specialty branches and a mobile salesforce that talks to its customers right in their homes or offices.
Palmer says the most important change that has taken place in banking in this decade is that the customer is king.
‘The customer makes the decision of how they are going to deal with a financial institution.
‘A lot of people in our mobile society want people to come to their home or office to discuss a mortgage or investment because they don’t have time to do it during normal banking hours.
The Royal Bank mobile salesforce is made up of representatives dealing with specific financial needs.
Retirement and registered retirement products are sold by a group Palmer calls the ‘Gray Panthers,’ a force of 185 retired Royal Bank employees.
Other financial needs are met by mobile personal bankers, representatives who work with car dealers, investment specialists and a fleet of 170 mobile mortgage representatives.
In addition to its traditional branches, the Royal Bank has a number of specialty branches.
One type is the Financial Group Centre that brings the Royal Bank, Royal Trust and the Royal Bank Dominion Securities brokerage firm under one roof.
There are four of these centres now and Palmer says there will be a total of 78 in the next three years, 19 of those in Ontario.
Other specialty branches include sales centres, senior centres, student banking centres, foreign exchange units and Financial Group Investors Centres, which are self-serve units with personal computers so investors can buy and sell stock and monitor their portfolios.
Royal Bank operates customized sales units in several Ontario locations, including Cambridge, London and Windsor, that deal exclusively with products such as mortgages, loans, investments and provide financial planning advice.
Any required banking transactions are handled at on-site atms.
Palmer says the bank’s senior branches will become increasingly important as the population ages.
Right now there are stand-alone centres in Saskatoon, Toronto and other Ontario communities such as Windsor.
There are also a number of senior centres in traditional branches in a number of rural communities such as Exeter, Kincardine, Owen Sound, Stratford, and St. Mary’s, Ont.
‘These units are senior-friendly in terms of access, the types of staff an service,’ says Palmer.
‘There are no stand-up tellers. Everything is done sitting down in private.
‘The chairs in the customer living room are not too low, to make them easier to get out of, and the cheque writing desk has extra lighting and magnifying glasses.’
The Royal Bank is focusing on access convenience with its technology-based services as well.
The company has 4600 atms across Canada including about 300 in Esso Tiger Express locations.
Palmer feels these types of alliances will continue to grow.
Royal Bank has also taken over the banking facilities at all three terminals at Toronto’s Lester B. Pearson International Airport and at Vancouver International Airport as well.
These locations will be used for rolling out new products such as travelers cheques and stamps via atm machines.
Royal Bank is already using atms to sell travelers cheques in Burlington.
Other enhancements are also being made to atms such as redesigned screens that are now being tested in London, Ont.
Rather than just an instructional tool, the screens are now a sales tool with messages to prompt people to ask about loans or to try new services such as mini-statements.
Royal Direct, the bank’s telephone banking service, is testing a number of new services, among them an interactive video kiosk by which customers can talk to a personal banking specialist. It was tested last year in Toronto and will be tested again this year using in-store locations.
Screen telephones began a test this past January in Fredericton, Moncton, and Saint John, n.b. and London, Ont. as part of Call Mall, a shop-by-phone service in which customers can bank, order things from stores, and pay for them with a Royal Bank credit or debit card.
Since beginning the test, Palmer says new Royal Direct clients have increased by 20% in London.
The bank will begin testing its pc banking, also under the Royal Direct bank, in several cities later this year.
