No, BankMobile, the mobile-only bank targeting millennials, is not opening any branches. It’s doing something much more interesting.
The bank, a brand of Customers Bank, a $6.8 billion institution based in Wyomissing, Pa., has already begun an intensive initiative this spring and summer to attract college students to the brand, Chief Strategy Officer Luvleen Sidhu told Bank Innovation. Bank representatives visited college campuses in March, April and May to speak to students. This is a welcome improvement from the old model, where tables would be set up and t-shirts given to students willing to sign up for this or that credit card.
Even more ambitious efforts are planned for the fall.
“At colleges, we want to find influencers interested in running BankMobile franchises that they would run as entrepreneurs,” Sidhu said. Franchises on campuses run by customers willing to be brand ambassadors is surely a new model for banking. The franchises can be run by individuals or teams.
The bank will also field “street teams” in New York this summer to speak to millennials about the account — hello, mobile onboarding! — and consider other large cities if the New York effort shows positive results. BankMobile is also developing a “financial empowerment curriculum,” a three-month program aimed at helping customers reduce debt and take steps to improve their financial position. The course will be accessed by a variety of means — web, email, Google Hangouts, all available on mobile devices, Sidhu said. By late summer, an education section will be part of the bank’s app.
Also in the works for the fall are tools to track spending and provide realtime alerts after transactions. Account aggregation and data consolidation tools — what is traditionally thought of as personal financial management (PFM) — will also find a place in the BankMobile app in August.