In today’s digital environment, banks and financial institutions have the power to increase customer satisfaction and retention via their online platform – by improving the experience of completing everyday transactions and by providing additional differentiating services.
Customer expectations and competition are high, and the financial industry is regularly disrupted by overnight sensations like Venmo and Cash App. Banks are under constant threat of their most prized differentiators becoming obsolete.
In addition to competition and customer-driven factors, financial institutions are bogged down with consolidation and constantly-changing regulatory constraints, leaving little bandwidth to focus on innovation. And without innovation, customers are lost.
One solution to financial institution FOMO is simple and impactful in more ways than one. It’s a feel-good remedy well-equipped to innovate fintech. And it answers to the known desires of many consumers, while also providing an opportunity for banks to grow their customized banking experiences. This solution is bank-driven consumer charitable giving.
Online Giving and Banking Are a Logical Pairing
Online giving is growing six times faster (over 9 percent each year) than offline giving. Clearly living with social purpose and participating in philanthropy are a top priority for consumers.
Those same consumers also spend a significant amount of time in online banking. Ask any Millennial when they last walked into a bank, and you’ll likely get a blank stare. Ask them when they last checked their bank account on their phone or sent or received money via Venmo or Cash App, and they’ll tell you the answer down to the hour.
The current wave of technology innovation is all about combining complimentary interest, so it’s an easy leap to realize that financial institutions can enhance their customers’ digital experiences – and increase customer retention – by providing tools to support the intersection of giving and banking interests.
Banks and financial institutions can now integrate online charitable giving solutions into their online applications, creating a seamless banking and giving experience.
Here’s more on how and why technological advancements in online giving is coming to fintech:
Integrated Online Charity Giving Solutions Enhance Consumers’ Banking Experience.
Contemporary research demonstrates that consumers not only expect but demand highly personalized experiences. They want the products that they utilize to predict their needs and desires; to help them do what they want to do easily and efficiently. This extends to banking as well.
Innovative platforms like GoodCoin enhance consumers’ banking experience by not only empowering them to give back to their preferred charities or nonprofits within their online banking environment, but also providing those donors with transparency as to when and where their charitable dollars are going.
For financial institutions to answer to both the demand of consumers who crave personalized experiences while also having a desire to give back, they must provide customers with online giving solutions that are integrated into online banking and are tailored to customers’ giving preferences.
Online Charitable Giving Fuels Customer Engagement and Loyalty.
Customers are attracted to the ‘buy one, give one’ mentality. A great example of this is TOMS, which give one pair of shoes to a child in need for each pair sold. Now expanded to giving in more than 70 countries, the company’s amazing growth can be almost completely attributed to their socially progressive giving strategy.
We are now seeing more brands taking part in the ‘give back’ movement by partnering with a variety of nonprofits, in turn enabling consumers to feel that they’re making a difference.
Consumers gravitate towards brands making a positive impact: social impact drives brand loyalty. Recent research from Accenture indicates 37% of consumers show loyalty to brands that actively support nonprofits and other shared causes. Consumers are more loyal to a brand that makes them feel good, and the giving aspect of the brand makes them feel like they’re doing a good deed. When a brand’s customers feel good, they are more inclined to continue interacting with that brand.
This same logic applies to banks and financial institutions. By building ‘feel-good’ solutions into a place they’re already active, customers will not only remain loyal but also develop or retain a positive perception, sentiment, and affinity towards the bank.
Millennials Are Driving Fintech’s Transformation (And Also Care Deeply About Giving Back).
Known as a generation demanding change and disruption, Millennials are fintech’s biggest target group. Legacy financial institutions tend to struggle to meet the needs and preferences of the average Millennial. While banks offer stability and character, Millennials want technology, automation, and accessibility.
Banks looking to tap into satisfying the appetites of the demanding Millennial should explore online giving. Millennials place a premium on corporate responsibility, prioritizing social responsibility and making an impact in the world as key driver in brands and businesses they support. In 2015, an astounding 93 percent of Millennials made a charitable donation.
Banks looking to innovate in step with new-entry fintech startup disruptors while also answering to consumers’ needs are provided with an opportunity to help grow the world’s heart. Blending modern-day solutions that encourages social purpose and philanthropy with legacy banking models is attainable and feeds customer engagement and loyalty.