Increasingly over the past several months, I have been working with more and more retail banking clients. A common theme has emerged during these discussions that centers on video and collaboration in the branch. The top of mind question is, "how are banks using video in the branch to grow top line revenue in a very tightly regulated environment and with ever increasing downward pressure on fee revenues?"

As retail banks have slowly emerged from the global financial crisis of 2008, they are increasingly looking for ways to differentiate themselves with their products and services.  Studies show that the branch is still relevant in the eyes of the retail bank consumer, but the role the branch will play in the future is beginning to change.

Cisco's IBSG team published a white paper on this topic, which covers the transformation that banks are currently going through. Retail banks are wrestling with moving from a multichannel environment to an omnichannel environment. The difference is, instead of offering a different experience and set of products and services across various delivery channels, they offer a more integrated and consistent experience across delivery channels. These traditional delivery channels include: branch, Internet and contact center to name a few. Currently, the mobile channel is growing in popularity and use, especially with new applications like remote deposit capture right from a mobile phone or tablet.

One of the solutions that is part of this Next Generation Branch transformation is Cisco's Remote Expert for Retail Banking solution. Remote Expert allows a retail bank to virtualize their pool of experts and make them available to more branches in their footprint, at a lower cost. In addition, Remote Expert supports the full lifecycle of the transaction. It has the capability to support upfront product and service inquires, all the way through to closing the transaction and booking the revenue. This translates into several measurable business benefits such as, greater staff efficiency, lower cost of services sold, and increased closure rates.

Of the banks I am currently working with, most of the use cases that are being piloted center around a few core retail banking services such as treasury management, commercial banking, and investment services. A common trend is that once a line-of-business begins to show interest in supporting a pilot, the other line-of-business leaders become interested in Remote Expert as well and want to participate in a pilot or larger scale roll-out of the solution.

In subsequent blog posts, Cisco will cover the use cases for Remote Expert in more depth and explain the business value the solution brings to a retail bank environment.