Bank selection
Choosing a bank is one of the most responsible decisions. A lot can depend on the stability of a credit institution. Of course, it is quite difficult for an average Russian to deal with professional financial indicators, but one must at least assess how long a bank has been operating in the market, how successfully it has functioned all this time, how large it is, many banks have ratings from international or Russian rating agencies. Bank ratings in terms of assets, loan and deposit portfolios, network of branches, quality of service are available on a number of Internet resources. I think that if a person looks at least at these criteria, then he will already be able to fairly objectively look at the bank with which he intends to cooperate.
Speaker – Sergey Erokhin, Executive Director, Head of Deposit and Commission Products Development Department, Renaissance Credit:
What criteria should you pay attention to when choosing a bank? How to determine the reliability of a bank?
Having decided to open a deposit in a bank, you, as a potential investor, will definitely take care of the question: which financial institution you can entrust your savings to. What parameters should be taken into account first of all? The first is the size of the pot. Yes, it is quite difficult to guarantee that the bank is large, and therefore reliable and financially stable. But real cases of bankruptcy of really large financial institutions are rare.
Secondly, it is worth looking at the branch network of a credit institution. Of course, first of all, you will be interested in not how many branches the bank has throughout the country, but whether they are directly next to your work or home, but better both there and there, since in our dynamic age the opportunity to save time on visiting bank office is an important factor.
Thirdly, you should pay attention to the bank’s business model – this is also evident from the financial indicators: what are the size of the loan portfolios of individuals and legal entities. So, a bank can be retail, which means that in its work it focuses on lending to individuals, it can be corporate – it is engaged in servicing legal entities, or universal – it covers both of these areas. If a bank primarily lends to legal entities, but funds its activities by attracting funds from the public, this can become an alarming factor. The activities of such financial institutions may not be transparent. And one more thing: you can also see what news has recently been published about the bank – were there any articles related to the ban on attracting deposits by this bank or difficulties in work. Of course, you don’t need to focus on the very first negative news or the first customer reviews that the Internet is now filled with, but in combination with other factors, this can help form a more adequate picture of a financial institution.
What methods do banks use to attract customers?
In matters of attracting new customers, banks, on the one hand, remain conservative, on the other hand, they keep pace with the rapid changes of our time. Of course, much attention is paid to advertising, PR and brand promotion in order to increase the awareness of the organization among consumers. At the same time, the digitalization and virtualization of the modern world and, as a result, the emergence of additional channels for interaction between banks and customers are forcing financial institutions to master new tools to attract an audience. It is now critically important to have a wide presence on the Internet. We are talking about both direct advertising and search engine optimization, as well as various ways of communicating with a client on social networks. Of course, all this is more aimed at a younger audience. At the same time, depositors, who are usually representatives of the older generation, are mainly looking for information on profitable offers on the Internet.
Another important element is the quality of service to existing customers. The more satisfied customers a credit institution has, the more likely it is to get new customers through referrals, without additional advertising costs.
