Retail banking customers in the US will conduct nearly 55.5 billion self-service transactions a year by 2010, compared to the 38 billion transactions forecasted for 2006, according to the latest TowerGroup research.
TowerGroup says US bank customers are currently performing 100 million self-service transactions everyday and the research predicts that self-service banking will undergo an explosion in both quantity and quality over the next few years.

The number of online transactions conducted by US customers is expected to rise from around 14.4 billion in 2006 to 24.4 billion in 2010. Meanwhile the number of transactions conducted using interactive voice response (IVR) technology is set to rise to around 16 billlion in 2010, from 12.2 billlion this year, while ATM transactions will increase from 14.4 billion in 2006 to around 15.1 billion in 2010.

Until recently, migration to self-service channels was driven by consumer demands for more banking options and not by the banks themselves, says TowerGroup. But recent internal studies by financial institutions have found that the most profitable customers are those who use a variety of delivery channels, both attended and self-service.

Further, banks are finding higher satisfaction rates among consumers who have greater choice in dictating where, when and how they do their banking.

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© Finextra Research 2006