Non-Traditional Services and Bundles Can Help Drive Fee Revenue, Study Finds

A new study by Market Rates Insight found that customers are interested in - and willing to pay fees for - new financial services like identity theft protection and same day bill pay.

Banks can solidify their customer relationships and beat back competition from non-traditional financial services providers by offering new types of services to their clients, a new survey by Market Rates Insight, a research firm focused on retail banking, found. The survey’s preliminary results, released yesterday, showed high interest among banking consumers in added services like credit score reporting (71.4%), identity theft alerts (70.8%), payment protection services (64.6%) and same day bill pay (58.7%).

The results also indicated that consumers value bundled services more than stand-alone service offerings, and are more willing to pay a fee for service bundles.

And gaining fee revenue will be increasingly important for banks, Market Rates Insight said in a statement released yesterday. Deposit rates are going to remain flat in the near future and loan demand is not expected to increase, making fee revenues key for growth, the company predicted. This in turn will make offering new services and bundles that customers are willing to pay a fee for a necessary piece of every institutions strategy going forward, the statement said. The full study, titled “Growth and Revenue Potential for Emerging Financial Services,” will be reviewed in a webinar on June 18th hosted by Market Rates Insight.

Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio