Raddon Report

As more consumers – especially millennials – grapple with managing their finances, the opportunity is ripe for financial institutions to offer financial literacy programs and build loyalty among accountholders.

Around the end of the first quarter 2019, Apple announced its second entry into the financial services space: the Apple Card.

It promoted this credit card in true Apple fashion, and the world took notice. The promotional video that accompanied both the announcement and subsequent rollout of the card later in 2019 was viewed by millions on YouTube, creating serious buzz in the financial services world.

Most financial institutions are focused on growth over the next 18 months; attracting new customers or members and especially growing loan balances in order to succeed with significant margin compression. To meet these goals, organizations must have an engaged workforce.

Minority-owned businesses have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, with higher rates of business closures and slower rates of recovery. At the onset of the pandemic, research from Robert Fairlie at the University of California, Santa Cruz estimated the number of active small business owners dropped by 22 percent between February and April 2020. Black-owned businesses were impacted most severely, with a 41 percent drop.

I have heard many financial institution executives say that 2021 is the “year of the card” when it comes to loan strategies, and consumer demand appears to be supporting that approach. But to deliver on loan strategies that involve credit cards, financial institutions must be willing to look at credit card offers at all levels.

In a recent Raddon Report article, Understanding the Profitability of Accountholders, we discussed how the pandemic and its accompanying economic slowdown have compressed margins at banks and credit unions, putting pressure on earnings. We stressed the importance of understanding what makes an accountholder profitable. In this report, learn how to identify and retain your most profitable retail accountholders, focusing on the top two performing groups – the A and B retail households.

The 2020s look to be a challenging environment for financial institutions. Here are five strategic takeaways from the 2021 Raddon Conference to help banks and credit unions navigate a path to prosperity.

A year containing a pandemic is, generally speaking, not a great year to have made predictions. In this review of the predictions we made for 2020 in January of last year, we will eat some crow. However, many of the things we thought might happen did, in fact, turn out to be the case. 2020 was a wild and woolly year, but on balance we were surprisingly prescient. However, we did miss clearly on the start and the magnitude of the recession.

Here are the predictions made last year and an assessment of each’s accuracy.

Prediction 1: What we said:

I’ve been using the same satellite TV provider for about 15 years. From that you can safely infer that I’m a loyal customer. But in this case, my loyalty isn’t why I keep my current satellite service. As a matter of fact, I have no more affinity for my current provider than I do for any other cable or streaming service. No, the only reason I stay is because my provider has a relatively exclusive relationship with the NFL, and I’ve been a football fan since I could walk. That’s it.