Is there still a technology-driven trend away from human interaction in banking?
Geurden: For basic bank transactions, yes, there’s still a push away from human interaction toward self-service call centers, ATMs, and the Web. But there’s also a renewed industry focus on the bank branch channel. Banks have realized that certain functions, such as opening an account and dispensing financial advice, are done better in person. From the technology perspective, that means branch investment will increase over the next couple of years and that investment will have to be fully technologically integrated with other channels. In general, commercial banks can be expected to invest heavily in the near-term in customer facing and integration capabilities. Microsoft is well positioned to provide the core infrastructure upon which these capabilities can be built.
