NEEDHAM, Mass. — Self-service banking is performing well in the United States, according to recent research from Boston-based financial-industry consultancy TowerGroup.
Bank customers are performing 100 million self-service transactions every day, and TowerGroup's Jerry Silva says self-service banking is expected to explode in both quantity and quality by 2010.
In "Customer Self-Service and Retail Banking in the U.S.: Rising Expectations, Challenges, Opportunities," TowerGroup's delivery channels research director says by 2010 that he expects retail banking customers in the U.S. to conduct nearly 60 billion self-service transactions annually — a near 50-percent increase from forecasted transaction volumes for 2006.
Internal studies suggest that a financial institution's most profitable customers use a variety of delivery channels — attended and self-service. FIs also are finding higher satisfaction rates among consumers who have greater choice in dictating where, when and how they bank.
But despite self-service growth in the financial-services arena, TowerGroup says banks can learn a great deal from other industries, including airlines and Internet retailers.
