Starling, Monzo, Chase and the rest are good at keeping their customers happy, but they still have some way to go when it comes to gaining their trust for bigger banking needs. For The Drum’s Finance & Utilities Focus, we look at the challenges the challenger banks face.
Challenger banks emerged out of the 2008 financial crash when people began to question the dominance of the big banks. More than a decade on, the new digital-only banks have managed to disrupt the industry and attract millions of customers, yet the way most people bank hasn’t changed that much.
Like any good brand strategy, the challenger brands did well at “defining their enemy,” says Rob Williams, director of the M&C Saatchi-owned consultancy Clear. “Their enemy was the high street bank. There hadn’t been any new entrants, the banks weren’t working in the best interest of their customers, they were quite slow, quite clunky and …