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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Investment banking gets all the headlines, but retail banking is where considerable profit opportunities still exist, if you know how to reach them. After the Great Recession, consumer bankers now need to focus on new products and strategies. The Boston Consulting Group outlines how banks can reinvent themselves to prosper in an era of slower growth. While this brief web article is rich in rhetoric and a little thin on practical advice, getAbstract finds it does offer retail bank executives and managers some thought-provoking ideas on competing in challenging times.

Summary

Retail banking operates in a “two-speed world”: While banks in developing countries enjoy fast-growing markets and healthy margins, banks in the developed world face sluggish growth and soft credit demand. Here, savvy retail bankers realize that they must own the “main banking relationship” with their customers to increase profitability. To do so, they have to exploit all their sales channels (branch, online, mobile, call center, ATM) effectively.

Despite differences in their growth profiles, both emerging and developed markets’ retail banking can use the same approaches to boost the sector’s return on equity (ROE...

About the Authors

Andy Maguire et al are partners, managing directors and principals at the Boston Consulting Group.