Jeremy Fawcett says, “Bank of Scotland, Halifax, Lloyds and Natwest have just announced over 200 branch closures collectively. Natwest says it’s a result of the ‘dramatic shift’ from face-to-face to online and mobile transactions.

Nothing new there… 32 of its branches went last year because of ‘increased use of digital banking’ and 300 as far back as 1996, as it rolled out new technology.

It has been a 20-year bear market for high street branches and a 20-year bull market for online banking, but it’s still hard to know where we are in the cycle. Especially with the Payment Service Directive 2 (PSD2) unleashing a new wave of data-driven innovation next year.

Banks will be required to share customer account information with other financial services companies (when explicit customer consent has been given) giving others a chance to come up with new ways to use all that information about how we spend our money.

The guiding principle for the next stage of development has to be to consider where the customer is with their behaviour and whether service providers are keeping pace”.

How financial services can keep up with the digital investor

EConsultancy

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