The Power of Place: Using Location Data to Enhance Your Branch and ATM Strategy

Over the past century, how consumers engage with physical bank branches has changed. In today’s digital-first economy, allowing customers to interact through their preferred channel is increasingly important. While many consumers now favor digital channels, access to cash and face-to-face services remains significant for various demographics. This makes it vital for banks and other financial institutions to maintain their presence and inclusivity. The growth of digital-only financial services presents an opportunity for those with brick-and-mortar locations to leverage their established brand, customer base, and inclusive offerings to differentiate themselves and stay relevant.

So, how can you leverage your established strengths to serve customers better than digital-only challengers? This is an important consideration for anyone involved in channel strategy. One approach is to take advantage of your location data, including branch, ATM, customer information, and more. The right location can turn accessibility into success and convenience into customer loyalty.

Before you start, it’s essential to consider the key questions that, if answered, will aid you in best serving your customers, such as:

• Where should I locate my branch?
• How can I optimize my network while still meeting the needs of existing customers?
• Where is the ideal placement for an ATM or self-service machine?
• Where is the nearest Post Office that can serve my customers?
• Are there options beyond the Post Office that meet my customers’ needs?

Answering these questions can be complex. Retail financial institutions may not always have a presence within reach of their customers. In some cases, it may not be economical, making it necessary to rely on alternatives to ensure that all segments of society, including those who cannot easily engage through digital channels, are adequately served.

You might be tempted to go digital-only because it seems cheaper, but doing so could mean losing your competitive edge. An option is to focus on customer service, offering multiple channels for customers to engage how they prefer. This approach also supports those uncomfortable with or unable to access digital channels, helping you protect and grow your customer base.

Precisely provides the software, data, and strategy services you need to make informed decisions that optimize your physical branch and ATM location network and maximize their opportunities. Doing so is crucial to maximizing customer reach, enhancing service delivery, and ensuring operational efficiency.

A common starting point on this journey is data enrichment—the process of enhancing your data by appending relevant context from trusted sources, improving its overall value, accuracy, and usability. With over 400 datasets, thousands of data attributes, and an interconnected ecosystem of IDs, Precisely makes the enrichment process simple and straightforward.

By integrating enriched data like as Points of Interest (POIs), Streets, and Demographics, financial institutions can gain a comprehensive understanding of their branch and ATM networks, enabling data-driven decisions that align with customer needs and business goals.

One key use case in network optimization involves geocoding physical assets. This assigns hyper-accurate longitude and latitude coordinates and a persistent, unique ID to each location so it’s easy to enrich. This geospatial insight allows institutions to calculate critical population metrics, including spending patterns, affluence, age distribution, drive times, and traffic throughput.

Such detailed analysis helps banks and ATMs strategically position themselves in locations with the highest customer engagement and growth potential. Additionally, understanding the businesses and POIs nearby, such as other bank branches, ATMs, and service providers like the Post Office, further enriches site selection and marketing strategies.

Moreover, Precisely empowers financial institutions to build a single, accurate customer view by mitigating data quality issues and reducing duplication. This is particularly important for compliance with Know Your Customer (KYC) obligations and ensuring accurate customer interactions. Data enrichment also complements existing machine learning and AI applications, improving predictive analytics, reducing false positives, and enhancing overall outcomes. Enriched data enables advanced predictive maintenance for service companies, ensuring 100% availability of ATM and branch services and proactive fulfillment to meet customer demands efficiently.

The comprehensive data and insights provided by Precisely support financial institutions in optimizing their branch and ATM networks by offering a detailed understanding of site locations, customer demographics, and nearby points of interest. This enables more strategic decision-making, improved customer service, and enhanced operational efficiency, ultimately leading to better business outcomes and customer satisfaction.

Ready to optimize your physical branch and ATM location networks? Discover more about the Data Integrity Suite: Data Enrichment service.