Cost Centers are Costly

Why Your Banking App Needs to be More Than Just a Teller

If your FI was opening a new facility that was going to be your only location, which of these approaches would you choose?

A: Staff it exclusively with tellers whose only function was to accept deposits, handle withdrawals, and facilitate transfers on existing accounts

Or … 

B: Also include staff trained to engage with your account holders, learn about their needs, and provide solutions – including opening new accounts, arranging loans, and doing other revenue-producing activities?

If you chose B, it’s probably because you know that just servicing existing accounts with no way to expand those relationships is eventually going to lead to financial ruin. At some point, your account holders will have needs you’re not meeting, which will drive them elsewhere to have them met. And they might just take the rest of their accounts with them.

But if you wouldn’t choose option A for your only physical location, why would you choose it for your digital branch?

Especially when:

• 82% of consumers are actively using online or mobile banking
• 72% say they prefer to handle ALL of their banking digitally
• 56% of consumers access their mobile banking apps AT LEAST once a day
• US FIs spent over $26 billion on digital banking in 2024 alone

For many consumers, your mobile app is the only “branch” they’ll ever visit – and you’re investing a lot into that “location.”

Yet most mobile banking apps are completely focused on facilitating transactions on existing accounts, and have:

• Little to no “marketing” capability (though you gotta love those tiny banner ads!)
• Limited personalization (if any)
• No use of data to identify users’ needs and offer solutions
• No way for users to act on an offer if they do see one

Today’s branch is digital – can you really afford to have it just be a teller line?

Pulsate can transform your digital branch from cost center to profit center – book a demo to find out how.