By Art Gillis

Do you think you’re going to influence a business customer or consumer to do their banking your way? Even in the remotest small communities, people read a lot and they want to believe they can get what the money center banks offer their customers. Any bank that wants to compete today will need all 14 delivery channels, every account type, any product and service offering, every payment mode, and be willing to adopt whatever is coming next. I haven’t heard the term “boutique bank” for several years, but I have heard “Internet-only bank” in recent years. Neither type survived. This is the Wal-Mart era of banking and Wal-Mart is coming to banking.

Specialization doesn’t cut it with bank customers because even though the world may be flat, it is also complex, multifaceted, networked and works in real time. That concept was evident as I viewed bank technology from the side of a very strong provider of technology. As part of an annual program I call “Makin’ the Rounds,” I walked into a presentation room at Metavante where 13 solutions experts were ready to show me the latest version of this long-established company.

When I say there were only two people in the crowd that I didn’t recognize, it’s not an attempt to demonstrate my popularity. Instead it shows how the bank tech business is changing to include shifts in consumer and business habits. One new person covered the expanding arena of payments systems and the other new person handled the broad area of business strategy, product management and lending competencies - topics that are very crisp in my mind as ways banks can enhance their capabilities and make more money. And please remember, banks are not altruistic organizations. The first thing on every bank CEOs mind every morning is how next quarter’s earnings report will look.

Having started as what we all commonly referred to as a “service bureau,” Metavante has in the past three years put together the “engine” to drive any bank toward a completeness in being able to handle the “any” of financial processing. Banks are financial super markets, and one needs only to take a look at the supply chain that serves as the source of that completeness to realize it’s here and deliverable today. The next time a bank tech salesperson calls on your bank, you should begin by telling him/her to show you ALL the company’s offerings.

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