“It is in the channels where banking has the highest costs per contact where mobile financial services (MFS) should seek new consumers, not only in online banking because that by definition already shares cost structures (for the bank) as light as the mobile channel. Planning on securing new users among the institution’s online customer segment means losing the opportunity to cut the cost per contact more drastically. This is because it is noticeably more costly in the more traditional channels besides the fact that it is reducing its potential market to a smaller segment from among an institution’s total customers. With greater acceptance among customers who regularly use offices, tellers, or telephone banking, the better and faster return on the investment made in the new channel”, according to Oriol Ros, Latinia’s Marketing Manager.
“There is a great opportunity to reduce costs by managing to migrate customers from more costly channels to the mobile channel. This obviously does not take away from the fact that in terms of convenience, especially among younger generations of customers, both the online and the mobile channel will be their first – and almost unique – option. However, efforts should be aimed at the fishing grounds of customers who are farther removed from technology but at the same time have the indispensable tools and knowledge to get good use out of the mobile channel”, continued Ros.
“Mobile banking, of course, introduces new operating costs, but is by far the most economical channel of those that can coexist in a financial institution’s multi-channel strategy, and the growth ratios and adoption of new users only reduce the costs per contact generated between the institution and the customer. And obviously not all transactions can be performed via SMS, thinking about the simplest technology within mobility. However they are very recurrent services, costly like no other for the bank, that can be settled with a message to the mobile device. It is worth it to invest in educating those customers. If we manage to migrate them in part, it will have contributed to improving our profits and measuring our efficiency, the financial institution’s ultimate goal”, concluded Ros.
