The Future of Self-Service Technologies in Retail Banking

Self-service technologies have had a large impact on retail banking. The central objective of this study was to profile the future diffusion levels for a number of these self-service technologies: some of which are established and some of which are still in the pilot stage. To achieve this objective, a Delphi study was conducted with leading experts from both banks and technology supplying companies in New Zealand. This sample was split into five relevant panels. The results suggested that transaction-based services, for which banks traditionally charged a relatively low fee, are moving away from human tellers and towards self-service technology. This is freeing up time for human tellers, who are now being trained in the giving of advice related to high involvement banking services, and cross-selling. Fees for this new service have increased, and will increase, accordingly. Surprisingly, there were few major differences in the diffusion estimates across the panels - although the technology suppliers were consistently more optimistic than the bankers when it came to their estimates of the implementation and acceptance of self-service technology.