Welcome to the bank branch of the future

Long queues, drab decor and restricted opening hours. While many people rightly mourn the loss of their local bank branch, it is little wonder usage has fallen in recent years when so few of them inspire people to pay a visit.

But what should the bank of the future look like? Speakers from across the world congregated in London this week for the 2019 Bank Transformation conference to share their views on the branches of tomorrow.

Some countries have already implemented bright ideas to arrest the decline in branch visits, such as installing mini-branches in petrol stations and offering customers the ability to buy cinema tickets and carry out non-financial transactions on their cash machines. Now it is the turn of Britain’s banks to overhaul their own networks, with the promise of yoga studios, in-house coffee shops and casually dressed staff.

Telegraph Money can reveal that one major bank, Virgin Money, is to unveil a new branch in Manchester next month that has a performance space and is capable of hosting music concerts.

At the conference, Richard Chrimes of Instinct Laboratory, a firm that researches human behaviour, said the design of many current branches meant that the human touch was lacking from customer visits. He suggested that banks could ditch uniforms and allow staff to dress more casually to create a more relaxed atmosphere.

Barbara Vanhauter of ING, an international bank headquartered in the Netherlands, said it was revamping its own network to include extensive video conferencing facilities that would allow customers to interact with specialised staff. She suggested that banks may come to ditch the word “branch” altogether, referring to ING’s

How your branch could look in the future revamped outlets as “client houses”.

The location of branches could change as well. Most people head to their nearest high street when they want to visit their bank, but some countries have decided to bring banking to their customers.

Ben Thorpe of Glory bank in Singapore said its customers could carry out basic bank functions at retailers, meaning they can deposit cash at a coffee shop or greengrocer.

Deutsche Postbank, one of Germany’s largest banks, has opened up branches in petrol stations, so people can manage their finances when they fill up their tank.

Ho June Chang, of Standard Chartered Bank in South Korea, said that the company had opened cash desks in busy workplaces to satisfy this demand. This is part of a wider rationalisation of its network, concentrating on fewer locations but with more staff in each branch and longer opening hours.

Its cash machines have been upgraded to offer increased functionality, including the ability to purchase cinema tickets.

Despite South Korea’s reputation as being a home of technology, 60pc of the country’s bank customers still use passbooks. This could soon change, however, as Mr June Chang said that more than 100 of the bank’s branches were now paperless, saving more than 15 million sheets of paper a year.

British banks have already sat up and taken note. Royal Bank of Scotland will launch a cashless branch in London later this year to see whether British customers can cope without cash and coins. Santander is trialling a “work café” in Leeds, which offers traditional banking facilities and space for freelancers to use their laptops.

Some banks have dropped the idea of being a bank altogether. Virgin Money operates seven lounges in major cities that are more akin to private members’ clubs than oldfashioned branches. These lounges have attractions such as mini-cinemas and bowling alleys but some do not offer any banking services.

Such lavish spending may anger those in rural communities who have seen branches closed and opening hours cut. Should huge sums of money be spent on cities already well-served by banks while the same institutions pull out of small towns and villages?

Technology could provide an answer. While British providers struggle to keep rural branches open on their own, banks in the Netherlands have started to share facilities.

Gerrard Schmid of Diebold Nixdorf, which produces about a third of the world’s banking machines, said that some cash machines and small branches in rural areas were now jointly owned. When a customer places their debit card into a machine, they are presented with a branded experience from their bank.

What else do cash machine providers have lined up? Mr Schmid said banks in Taiwan now allowed customers to verify their identity using their fingerprints rather than debit card and Pin.

However, he warned that Britain was “in the middle of the pack” globally when it came to using new technology and said that it should not fall behind.

Cash machines in this country offer an array of features but little customisation. The technology already exists for customers to receive a fully personalised experience when they use a cash machine. For instance, the machine could learn what transactions are popular for each user and present these options immediately, speeding up transaction times.

But even those in the industry say that technology can sometimes go too far. Mr Schmid said cash machines could typically perform as many as 90 different tasks for users, but banks elsewhere in the world have had to restrict this after customers found it too daunting to use the machines.

Branches may be closing in swathes but some banks have big plans for their remaining outlets, finds Adam Williams

Bank customers in South Korea can buy cinema tickets from their cash machines