An Inconvenient Truth: Digital Banking is not always the Best Answer

San Francisco, CA, December 7, 2017:  As digital banking capabilities have expanded over the years, adoption of online and mobile banking has reached more than two-thirds of retail banking consumers. Despite the convenience of digital channel access to their accounts, consumers’ use of traditional banking channels — branch, ATM, call center — has declined only modestly in recent years.

Javelin Strategy & Research’s recent report, Why Digital Banking Often Fails to Reduce Offline Volume: Education and Contextual Support Needed to Overcome Offline Inertia, concludes that deeper digital adoption hinges on FIs providing greater support during digital transactions, including setting clear expectations and highlighting policies and limits prominently.

“Purpose-built digital delivery solutions are critical to changing consumer behavior by providing obvious advantages over more familiar, legacy options,” said Emmett Higdon, Director, Digital Banking at Javelin Strategy & Research. “Digital solutions must be designed and delivered to focus on specific aspects of their delivery that are clearly superior to the offline options that are more familiar and better understood by customers.” 

The report, Why Digital Banking Often Fails to Reduce Offline Volume: Education and Contextual Support Needed to Overcome Offline Inertia, further explores how banks can determine when digital channels are not the right answer for a situation, and how offline channels can help increase consumer awareness and adoption of digital channels.