CBA – FOCUSING ON ‘COMMON CAUSE’ OF FINANCIAL WELL-BEING OF IT’S CUSTOMERS.

CBA, as we know, is Australia’s leading bank and one of the leading banks in the world. Naturally, CBA feels responsible for financial well-being of its customers and intends to provide more than banking. To this effect, CBA conducted a research and found startling if not shocking revelations;

• 7 million customers, where CBA was the primary banking relationship, one in three could not quickly access $500 in cash or credit in an emergency and one in three households would be unable to find $500 in an emergency.
• More than 56 per cent of people would not have enough savings to handle a temporary loss of income.
• Around 46 per cent believe they were not progressing towards their financial goals
• 45 per cent of Australians were uncomfortable with their current level of spending
• More than a third of Australians are spending more than they earn each month
• Not only were Australians overspending, but the new data revealed this overspend contributed to a large proportion of Australians struggling with financial wellbeing.

The question is why should CBA care about these insights? Here’s why;

• 73 per cent of Australians want banks to do more to understand their needs and concerns
• 72 per cent want their bank to help them manage their finances in a rapidly changing world.

Clearly, CBA understands it has a critical role to play in financial well being of it’s customers. The question is how CBA is empathizing with it’s customers and what initiatives has it taken to inculcate better financial habits for its customers?

CBA moved beyond Banking to a Money Management Advisor through it’s digital and physical banking channels. It intends to engage customers through the Net Banking, Mobile Banking and In-Branch experience.

Mobile Banking has been a key digital channel to engage, remind and persuade customers for better financial habits.

• Transaction Notifications – Transaction Notifications include real time credit card transaction alerts that give customers insights into their daily spend.
• Spend Tracker – provides a monthly summary of credit card transactions that are categorized which shows customers where their money is going.
• Savings Challenge – which compares a customer’s current transaction account spending against their average for the prior three months so that they can track and improve their savings over time.
• Savings Jar – allows customers to set aside “pots of money” for unforeseen events by rounding up daily transactions. Customers will have access to this money whenever they need it.

CBA is also triallling a number of other initiatives in the CommBank Lab. CBA applies Behavioural Science and Analytics to understand customers’ behavior for providing products, services and experiences that meet their expectations.