About 61 percent of consumers still visit physical bank branch locations regularly, according to a new survey by Brookfield-based Fiserv Inc.
The quarterly study, called “Expectations & Experiences: Channels and New Entrants,” polled more than 3,000 U.S. banking consumers online through a third party.
About 53 percent of consumers prefer online or mobile banking for day-to-day banking, while 44 percent said they preferred a brick-and-mortar branch and 2 percent said they would be fine with a fully-automated branch with no staff.
A whopping 80 percent of consumers signed in to their bank’s website in the past month, the survey found, but it was mostly to check balances, pay bills or move money among accounts. But when they visited a bank, it was to deposit checks, withdraw cash or speak to a banker.
While financial institutions have been promoting the use of “mobile wallets” that allow electronic funds to be used for payments through a smartphone, just 16 percent of those surveyed had used them. When broken down by generation, 36 percent of early millennials and 33 percent of late millennials had used mobile wallets.
When the figures were broken down by age, the “late millennials” between 25 and 35 visited a branch most frequently—4.6 times over the previous month. The overall average was 2.9 times in the month. Late millennials were most likely to have applied for or received a loan in the past year, which could be why they visited so frequently.
“Consumers are making use of all financial channels,” said Huntley Bakich, senior vice president of Digital Banking at Fiserv. “Deciding which channel to use is often dependent on their personal needs at a particular moment in time. As life stages change and require different levels of engagement, they are using all the tools available to them.”
Fiserv is a Fortune 500 company that develops technology solutions for financial institutions. Its third quarter revenue was $1.4 billion.
