ATLANTA—A potent myth within the credit union community remains that Millennial members simply won’t come in to a branch. The truth is exactly the opposite, according to one person.
Anthony Burnett, customer experience director at Level 5 here, pointed to three studies done in the past six months—by Bain & Company, Fiserv, and TimeTrade, respectively—all of which have shown that Millennials actually are the CU members who are most likely to visit a branch.
Anthony Burnett
Burnett’s comments come as part of a CUToday.info series on “fake news,” or misconceptions, that may be leading to poor decisions by CU executives.
Burnett said the research shows that more than half of all financial consumers visit a branch at least once a month, and that Millennials are the most likely to visit in person and apply for a loan.
More specifically, the research shows Millennials age 25-27 are most interested in obtaining a mortgage. “These are the folks that are moving out of the family home, out of rentals, and are looking for homes of their own.”
Car loans are also attracting this same demographic, he noted, pointing to the growing mortgage and car loan demand credit unions have seen in the last couple of years.
What all of that means is the branch remains alive and well, said Burnett, which puts new emphasis on designing facilities that are member-centric.
Projecting Confidence & Stability
Banks want to project confidence and stability, and that informs their branch designs, according to Burnett. But credit unions are tailoring their branches to be as member-friendly as possible.
Credit unions are able to do so because they “don’t do a lot of business lending.” So they can craft their branches to individual member needs, whether it be consumer advice, wealth management or financial advice, he explained.
It’s a myth “credit unions are trapped in the past,” Burnett said. “The truth is they are leading the financial industry in retail and consumer engagement.”
Credit unions want their branch architecture to signify “they are different. They don’t want to be confused with banks.”
To achieve that, according to Burnett, credit unions are using lighting and “action-oriented” color schemes.
Demonstrating a 'Glow'
As an example of differentiation from banks, Burnett points to Commonwealth Credit Union of Frankfort, Ken. “The exterior vestibule is almost all glass,” he says, with the interior vestibule illuminated by LED lights.
“At night the colors change. There is quite a glow in there,” he said. That “glow” helps differentiate Commonwealth from the eight bank branches and a competing credit union within a mile of it on “Bank Row.”
Another example he cites is Mazuma Credit Union in Kansas City, wich Level 5 helped design and build.
Mazuma Credit Union.
In all, Level 5 has designed and built more than 100 credit union and bank branches around the country over the past couple of years.
At Mazuma, “the culture is more like Google or Silicon Valley,” he said, with fewer hard walls and “everything pro-membership, pro-Millenial culture. It’s fun and exciting.”
Burnett added, “We don’t see commercial banks build branches around culture very often.”
He is pretty high on all financial institutions “being more targeted in architecture. Everything inside the branch is about member engagement.”
In fact, Burnett noted he recently spoke at a bank meeting where he “pointed to credit unions as a potential model to consider on consumer engagement.”
Even the big banks like Wells Fargo and Chase can learn from credit unions, he beleives, since “credit unions are open to what works.”
—Mark Fogarty