PRI Blog

So, you’ve done all the major work to select a new core system, including ensuring that it aligns with your organization’s strategy and long-term goals. You’ve worked hard to select the right vendor and the right internal team to prepare for implementation, which may have taken several months or a year. Now launch day has arrived, and your top goal is to accomplish a seamless integration that will bring you out the other side without losing customers or frustrating your employees. How do you do it?

You’ve done the hard work of acquiring a customer, and now you want to deepen the relationship. Customer Engagement is the process – or journey – that can result in increased loyalty, advocacy, and customer lifetime value. But how does a financial institution go about attacking the Customer Engagement challenge? While there is no simple or comprehensive list of strategies, Tom McGill, PRI Director of Customer Experience, tackles a few topics to consider that can be effective as you move down the engagement path.

Twenty years ago, when cash was still a primary payment method, surcharge-free ATM access was an important competitive tool for smaller FIs including community banks and credit unions. Consumers were generally using cash for most small ticket purchases, sensitive to ATM-related fees and often chose their banking relationship based upon this kind of access. But times have certainly changed! Fast forward to current day, and the importance of ATM access has declined substantially. There has been a steep decline in the number of ATM cash withdrawals in recent years and in cash share of consumer payments with the rise of mobile payments, online shopping, cash back at point of sale and the increased use of debit and credit cards. Consumers have reduced need and desire to pay with cash, which means the surcharge-free offering may no longer be strictly necessary to attract and retain them.

The PRI team gathered in historic Nashville, Tenn., for our annual meeting in October. Being in “Music City,” we were able to experience all it had to offer, while coming together to review the vision of PRI and discuss trends and changes coming to the financial industry. PRI founder Tim Holt kicked off the meeting […]

Mike Holt, PRI partner, discusses interchange income and how it’s calculated in this week’s blog. The History of Interchange Income Simply put, interchange is the small percentage of each credit card and debit card purchase amount that is paid to financial institutions by merchants for the privilege and convenience of accepting payments via the FI-issued […]

Intentional process improvement and how it applies to the strategy and culture of a financial institution is not always at the forefront of senior leaders’ minds. When it’s not, it can easily fall by the wayside. Sometimes FIs subscribe to the view, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This perspective can lead to a […]

Mergers and acquisitions in the banking industry continue to take place at a rapid pace and provide a foundation for strong growth for financial institutions. M&A can be a complicated long-term process, and it requires consideration of many elements beyond just converting a system platform, as PRI points out in the article M&A Integration: It’s […]

The Dos and Don’ts of Contract Negotiation Contracts for essential services lie at the heart of a financial institution’s business and greatly impact what it can and cannot do and what it offers to its customers. Because these contracts in large part drive the FI’s business, it’s important to get the contract negotiation right. Any […]

While we have never been in another economic cycle exactly like this one, the fundamentals of lending and borrowing for financial institutions remain the same. As always, FIs are interested in how to prepare for and respond to what’s coming while protecting their interests and jumping on emerging opportunities to increase revenue and profits. In […]

As of April 2023, the yield curve was inverted, pointing to a possible recession. Rates have dramatically increased, slowing loan demand, and inflation stubbornly hangs on indicating more rate increases could be on the way in the short-term. Customer demand has shifted the conversation from rate floors to rate ceilings. In addition, excess liquidity that resulted from the pandemic is now falling. This, combined with depositor demand for higher yields, is beginning to increase deposit costs. In this blog, PRI consultant Shawn King discusses how to maximize profitability and ROE in an increasing rate environment.