Has the Financial Crisis Caused Financial Institutions to Put Innovation on the Back Burner?

The “Great Recession” has seriously impacted the economy over the past couple of years. Many businesses have taken substantial hits to their revenue streams, including banks and credit unions. When revenue declines management is faced with many difficult decisions. Essentially, without as much money to go around there are many shifts in priorities. Unfortunately, more often than not, many innovative projects are the first ones to be cut and or put on the back burner. Whether these projects are to increase revenue or decrease costs, they are generlly the easiest to cut due to there unproven nature. It is always the most depenedable to put your money in the “safe” bet. For example, it is much easier to try and “do more with less” and operate on a much leaner staff. While this approach may temporarily stop the leak in a boat, it is merely a short term fix. Financial institutions that recognize this and take action to reinstate many of these innovative projects, that were on the back burner, will benefit the greatest as we all distance ourselves from the worst points in the “Great Recession.” Where does your instituion fall in this subject?

The perfect innovative initiative to make a priority is a retail branch workforce optimization project. With labor costs being an enormous expense, there are significant dollar amounts that can be saved through efficient processes. For example, comparing different branches and teller productivity performances. Ultimately, the absolute best comparison is other industry peers. A great source for this comparison is the FMSI Comparative Data Report. This monthly report, which is distributed to all FMSI Teller Management System clients, ranks close to 100 nationwide financial institutions in four different productivity metrics.

The time is now for senior management to put focus back on innovative projects. What innovative projects are you currently working on?



Adventure Book

Teller Performance Management – Importance of Goals

Understanding expectations and goals is critical for all employees. Countless business gurus constantly harp on the importance of having and setting goals. I do not disagree with this, however I believe the more important aspect is what your goals should be. Specifically, what your minimum and your “target” goals are. In teller line operations in financial institutions across the country, these goals are often not set.

So, what is an example of a teller line goal? There are many different goals from sales goals to service goals. I believe the goals that can be most effectively managed are productivity goals. For example, tracking teller transaction per hour is a fantastic metric that you can utilize. You can do this per branch, per teller and per institution.

The big question is… what should your teller transaction per hour goals be? What do you compare this number to? If you set your goal to little or too big it can have a negative effect. The first place to start is internal numbers. For example, comparing different branches and teller performance. Ultimately, the absolute best comparison is other industry peers. A great source for this comparison is the FMSI Comparative Data Report. This monthly report, which is distributed to all FMSI Teller Management System clients, ranks close to 100 nationwide financial institutions in four different productivity metrics.

So now that you have all the data to establish goals, the next step is to clearly communicate the minimum and “target” goals to your staff. With expectations and goals set and conveyed, a business will see positive results.

Survival of Retail Banking

I recently came accross the below article and was fascinated by some of the industry trends and the emphasis put on the strategy towards the ”survival” of retail banking.

“When retail distribution specialists are looking at the positioning of branch real-estate there are a number of considerations, but the foremost consideration is where physically to put a branch to enable the most visits – essentially, how convenient it is to get to a branch. But these days, the branch simply isn’t the most convenient channel to use – Internet, Mobile and ATMs are far more ‘convenient’.

Key segments like Mass Affluent, and key product areas like mortgages, wealth management and loans are just too easy to position and service through direct channels. Branches better start figuring out how they’re going to make money over the next 5 years, and they better do it fast.” – From the Branch Networks: Where do we go from here? article in www.Banking4tomorrow.com See the full article here (Branch Network Industry Trends)

A key area of the equation is controlling the staffing cost element. Teller transaction volumes are down while salary & benefit costs are way up. The time is now for financial institutions to take measurable action. FMSI’s Teller Management System™ (TMS) finds the right balance for a teller line by scheduling tellers based on forecasted transaction volumes, leading to significant labor cost savings while balancing the desired service levels.

NEW Bank and Credit Union Contact Center Scheduling System

(PRWEB) June, 2010 — “The ContactCenter Management System™ (CMS) enables community banks and credit unions to take advantage of a tool that for the most part has only been utilized by much larger financial institutions – an automated scheduling solution based on forecasted call volumes,” says W. Michael Scott, CEO of Financial Management Solutions, Inc., “By automatically scheduling agents based on forecasted call volumes and agent work preference, CMS allows for an optimized contact center staff, resulting in significant labor cost savings.”

The automated web-based scheduling engine for CMS takes volume forecasts by contact center and matches it to agent work preferences – creating detailed monthly work schedules. You can easily “tweak” schedules, remove or add an employee to the schedule, or override any of the basic parameters you originally set up.

In addition to the automated scheduling feature, CMS also offers unique to the financial institution industry, an array of monthly contact center management reports (CMS Reports) that analyze key productivity metrics including:

Agent Productivity
Actual Staffing Effectiveness
Banking Industry Peer-to-Peer Comparisons
Plus Many More Reports from a Management Perspective

12 Months Balances of Four-year CDs Have Increased

Consumers gravitatie towards the product with the greatest return. Lately this product has been four-year CDs, according to data tracking firm Market Rates Insight. "Over the past 12 months, balances of four-year CDs have increased by $17 billion from $149 to $166 billion. During the same time period, balances of all other CDs declined from $264 billion to $225 billion. Credit union data was not tracked by MRI," States Michelle Samaad from her recent CUTIMES article (click here).

How have your four-year CD sales been? Are they in-line with this industry trend? Tracking sales per institution, branch and individual lobby employee is something that every successful organization does well. Simply knowing your numbers is not enough. You have to monitor, forecast and improve them with a dedicated process. You may not have dedicated resources to keep up to this level of detail with your platform side of your business. With the Lobby Tracking System (LTS) from FMSI, this time will be drastically reduced allowing you to keep up with monitoring, forecasting and improving your lobby performance.



Financial Management Solutions, Inc. (FMSI) LTS system will ultimately help you improve your sales and staffing performance.