Building emotional bonds with customers is a strategic imperative, and why the change programmes currently being undertaken at banks need to recognise the hidden lessons of Uber. All brands would love to be loved. Banks have always been low-differentiation and low-engagement brands, but given the financial crash and the metronomic regularity of financial scandals, love is probably not an option. But new technologies, new business models, rapidly changing customer expectations and tighter regulations mean that banks, like many other categories, are struggling to align with a rapidly transforming world. Some people are asking, for the first time in four millennia: “What are banks actually for?” Are banks, like car dealerships, a historical aggregation of propositions, most of which could be done better, cheaper and more conveniently by others, through different channels, using new models? Moven, Lendingtree, Fincite and thousands of others, think so. Read more: bankingtech.com
