BALTIMORE — Call what is occurring now “the digital transformation of financial services,” said Geoff Knapp, a presenter at NACHA's PAYMENTS 2012 conference and a vice president at Fiserv.

His point: mobile is about much more than a new channel. In many, profound ways it is remaking the consumer's relationship with his/her financial institution.

“Clients today are by and large choosing to interact with their financial institution via online and mobile,” Ginger Schmeltzer, a senior vice president at Georgia-based SunTrust Bank, added at Monday's session. “Traditional branch and ATM usage are declining. We are seeing a substantial shift in how clients interact with us.”

One oddity: mobile banking customers may actually have much more contact with their institution, perhaps logging in several times daily as opposed to stopping into a branch once weekly, said Schmeltzer.

Mobile banking users also are highly attractive to the institution, said Schmeltzer, who elaborated that on average they are “32% more profitable than non-users.”

They also are more loyal: “they are 53% less like to attrite,” said Schmeltzer. “We see a direct relationship between mobile adoption and loyalty.”

But that cuts both ways: “People are very passionate about what they want from mobile banking. If they don't like something – or if they want a feature we do not presently offer – they say, 'fix it or I am out of here,'” related Schmeltzer.

A complexity for financial institutions, suggested Knapp, is that so much of mobile is defined by non-banks who have gotten very good at delivering what mobile consumers want. “I call it the Facebook standard. They have created a seamless experience in terms of online versus mobile. That sets standards for mobile users who believe their experience using your mobile products should be every bit as good as online. This is a very high standard. But it has become the standard,” the Fiserv executive said.

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