Have Retail Bankers Left the Barn Door Open?

Cornerstone Advisors' Terence Roche writes for Gonzobanker about the new raid on retail bank revenues coming from the likes of Capital One with its new "Capital One decoupled debit card" product and HSBC/Tempo's new CVS-branded debit card. Earlier this week, we noticed that Sheetz has begun working with Capital One on its new debit card program.

Both of these innovative debit card products ride the ACH rails into the consumer's bank checking account - there's no need for the consumer to switch banks - rewarding the cardholder in the process with a much richer rewards program stimulating higher usage and frequency on the new entrants' cards vs. the bank's own traditional (and most likely unrewarded) debit card. Meanwhile, the retail banker is left with the costs of servicing the ACH-based payment and earns no revenue on the transaction itself.

A time for concern? Seems to us that retail bank payments strategists may want to be updating their board presentations! Read Roche's article and decide for your self!