How customers interact with their bank and spend or transfer their money is changing. AIB customers had 2.86 million daily interactions in 2021, of which 95 per cent were digital.
And it's not just younger customers who are choosing digital. Last year, AIB saw a 41 per cent increase in the number of active mobile banking customers in the over-65 age group.
The impact of the pandemic is clear. AIB customers made about 107 million digital wallet payments in 2021, almost double the number in 2020 and more than three times the number before the pandemic – which stood at 34 million in 2019. The value of those payments has increased 382 per cent since 2019, from €500 million to €2.4 billion in 2021.
“Increased digital literacy means more customers are able to bank at their convenience, instead of making the trip to a branch for a payment,” says Jim O’Keeffe, managing director of retail banking in AIB.
"In AIB we are seeing the relentless shift to digital banking in real time, and that shift has only been accelerated by the pandemic. Customers expect to manage their money when they want, how they want, from the convenience of their phone."
Benefitting
That applies to businesses as well as personal customers. “Businesses need the security of knowing their payments will be processed efficiently,” O’Keeffe says. “And, at AIB, we provide always-on digital services, ensuring payments are made as smoothly and seamlessly as possible from the comfort of customers’ homes, offices or their local shops through their digital wallets.
"AIB Merchant Services, our joint venture with Fiserv, drives frictionless and cashless payments for businesses across the country through our Clover terminals."
One business benefiting from those always-on digital services is Fresh The Good Food Market. "Fresh The Good Food Market is a high-quality grocery and premium convenience chain with eight stores in Dublin," says founder Noel Smith. "We introduced cashless tills in our Grand Canal store in Dublin's silicon docks in 2018.
“The store is surrounded by multiple tech firms. These companies’ staff are Fresh customers, so we considered that the idea of using technology to facilitate rapid self-service and speedy transactions would appeal to their nature.”
The company rearranged the queuing system in the Grand Canal store to accommodate a new run of five cashless debit and credit card-only terminals.
“It was a deliberate decision not to handle cash in those tills from a security and speed perspective,” Smith points out. “We supported our new service terminals in-store with new instructional signage and a staff member as a ‘host’ being present at all times to provide customer service to those who needed it.”
Customer reaction was overwhelmingly positive. "Customers got it," says Smith. "Within two weeks, 55 per cent of in-store transactions were self-service. Currently the use of self-service tills is sitting at 60 per cent, with 80 to 85 per cent of those transactions being contactless payments.
“The adoption of contactless payments sky-rocketed during the pandemic. We have rolled out cashless tills in three of our stores; Grand Canal, Smithfield and Capital Dock, and our latest store in development, Dublin Landings, will also feature our now standard run of three self-service cashless tills.”
According to Smith, numerous benefits have flowed from the change. These include contactless payments improving speed of service and efficiency for both customers and the store. Cash handling costs have also been reduced.
Greater confidence
In addition, contactless payment options gave greater confidence to customers in a retail environment during the pandemic.
He also points to reduced queuing times as self-service tills with contactless payment facilities cut transaction times and enable customers to quickly purchase a small number of items without the need to queue for service. That allows the retailer to process a higher throughput of customers during peak times such as breakfast, lunch and during local events. It also frees up store staff for customer service roles instead of operating tills.
Not everyone is ready to go digital, of course. “We understand some customers still like to bank in person,” says O’Keeffe. “AIB has Ireland’s largest bank branch network with 170 branches and we continue to maintain a strong presence in the communities we serve throughout Ireland.
“Our 2.8 million customers can as always seek the advice of our staff in our branches, and now they can make cash and card transactions in AIB at An Post locations across the country. AIB at An Post conveniently offers our customers longer opening hours at post offices across the country, including weekend opening in some instances.”