Retail Delivery & Distribution

Weekend warriors

By Charis Palmer

In the race to offer more convenient banking, ANZ and the Commonwealth Bank have broken away from the pack, announcing a move to seven-day trading.

“We all have busy lives and this is one way that the Commonwealth Bank can take some of the pressure off our customers, by being open when they are ready to see us,” says Ross McEwan, group executive for retail banking services.

The bank has commenced Sunday trading at a select group of branches as the first stage of a national weekend trading roll-out across four States. On completion of the roll-out the bank says it will have more full-service branches open on a Sunday than any of its competitors.

A spokeswoman for ANZ says the bank recognised some time ago the need to improve convenience, with internal research showing customers rank access to convenient branches and ATMs, straightforward fees and engaged staff as the most important decision factors in choosing a bank.

“We launched ANZ’s brand proposition “more convenient banking” in 2005, which was about offering a more simple product range, opening more branches and ATMs, upgrading existing branches and extending branch hours.”

The strategy is similar to that of North America’s TD Canada Trust which has embraced convenience and comfort as its key brand attributes.

The bank has extended its trading hours at its 900 branches from an average 50 hours per week to 62 hours, at a cost of $US45 million. Executive vice-president for retail distribution, Brian Haier, says: “We are doing that to put greater distance between us and our competition and to once and for all state our ownership over convenience.
“The typical hours of our major competitors would be 35 to 37 hours per week.
We already have a significant lead – we are extending that lead because it’s our strength, it is what we are known for.”

If you build it will they come?

As two of Australia’s major banks clash over which is more convenient, new entrant BankWest is hoping to steal some of their market share with its push to open more branches on the east coast. Over the next three years it will open 160 new branches, all of which will be open seven days, and until 9pm on Thursdays.

BankWest Retail head of change management Andy Weir says the bank was always pretty convinced demand for seven day trading existed. “We felt that convenience and accessibility to financial services was one of the most important factors when people chose where to go for those services.”

The bank says its hunch was seemingly correct, based on the traffic it is getting to the first of its new stores.

Weir says: “We’re very much at the start of our expansion journey, but the early indications are that foot traffic, not only on the weekends, but also when we’re open late on Thursday evenings, is actually higher during those times than during what you’d refer to as standard banking hours.”

This experience runs counter to research from ACNielsen which shows the majority of customers are no longer choosing a bank based on its store locations or hours, as was the case in the past. In fact, nearly half (45 per cent) say online banking capability is the key attribute they consider when selecting a bank (see table page 2). Well behind fees and charges and customer service comes convenient locations, with 22 per cent saying branch location is an issue.

Employees expect rewards

One of the biggest challenges to extending opening hours is staff.

On the back of the Commonwealth Bank’s announcement of extended hours the Finance Sector Union has launched a “Save our Sundays” competition for its members, reminding industry that staff should be rewarded for giving up their weekends. F

SU policy director Rod Masson says: “Nothing good will arise from employees working weekends against their will or from them being put on agreements that might look good initially but ultimately remove their rights. It's happy staff that equal happy customers.”

BankWest’s Weir says this has not proved a challenge. “The benefit we have is we’re obviously recruiting people into those hours as opposed to having to change people’s hours who are currently used to a more traditional working pattern.”

And, he says, the bank has been able to recruit new staff looking for non-typical hours which better suit their lifestyle.

With sales targets to meet, Weir says staff are also more inclined to want to work when branches are busy, so they can increase reward levels.

“There’s a strong incentive to want to work on Saturday, Sunday or late at night because that’s when stores are busiest.”

Winning on weekends

There’s little doubt bankers are hoping extended hours will lead to more high-value transactions in branches. The Commonwealth Bank’s McEwan says: “For many of our customers, Sunday is one of their busiest days, whether they are merchants or just members of the general public.
“It’s therefore logical that we provide banking services on a Sunday to support our customers as well as shoppers or people looking for financial advice or products like a housing or personal loan.”
Weir says the bank believes customers will use the extra time to conduct more complex financial transactions, rather than simply coming in to deposit or withdraw cash.

“Certainly some of the feedback we’ve had from customers in the early stages is that they’re more inclined to do some of the more complicated transactions during these weekend times when perhaps they’re not dashing in and out from work. They’ve got a bit more time to really sit down and make those big financial decisions.”

Ross Checkley, vice-president of the financial solutions division with ATM technology company NCR, says longer trading hours will add to the trend for banks to push basic branch transaction services to self-service devices. “We will continue to see more migration of traditional transactions from counters to self-service, and we will also see branch or store design start to reflect a comfortable sales environment that allows access to specialist expertise.”

Checkley says in order to cater for “drop-in” customers looking to discuss complex transactions such as mortgages or wealth management, institutions will be forced to embrace more self-service technology.

“For example, customers might be able to use a non-cash type kiosk in a branch to log themselves in and request mobile phone notification 15 minutes before an appointment is available.”