You Got the Account. But the Megabank Got the Wallet.
By Laurie McLachlan, Chief Marketing Officer at Revio Insight
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Executive Summary
- Despite huge investments in data, many institutions still focus only on superficial customer analysis — new accounts opened or deposits enrolled.
- Many institutions continue to miss the signals where relationships are at risk — and can’t see the many opportunities where they are not even in the game.
- Yet your core system already has transaction data that can reveal these hidden relationships, if you know where to look.
Most banks and credit unions don’t have a deposit problem. They have a visibility problem.
Institutions pour millions into customer data platforms, CRMs, and analytics tools, yet many still don’t honestly know their customers or members.
Inside the institution, one person can have multiple IDs across systems. Outside, customers and members often have hidden competitive relationships. It’s frustrating. All that investment, and institutions still can’t connect the dots.
Brian Bauer, CEO of Revio Insight, explains: “The root cause is lazy core banking data that isn’t being fully unlocked. The real power lies in activating that data, surfacing actual transaction behaviors to reveal where relationships are thriving and where they’re leaking.
Despite all their investments in data, many institutions focus only on the superficial signals: new accounts opened or deposits enrolled. They miss the hidden behaviors that reveal where relationships are sometimes at risk and sometimes not even won at all.
Jim Marous made a sharp point in his article — The Silent Competition Is Winning. Are You Even in the Game? — “Many institutions are losing customers or members not because of bad service or weak products.”
Customers are Showing You What They Need. Are You Watching?
Most banks and credit unions try to deepen relationships by making generic offers to anyone who qualifies. Or they lean on next-best offer engines that predict what a customer or member might want, without actually knowing what they’re doing.
Why spend big on guesswork when the answers are already in your core data?
Consider a Utah-based bank that identified a segment of business clients making merchant deposits to third-party providers. Instead of guessing, they acted.
They reached out with a specific, timely offer. Lee Lamb, SVP of Marketing & Brand at CC Bank, explains, “We recently discovered over 200 of our business clients are using third-party merchant service providers like Stripe, Square, or PayPal. But when we compare what we offer, we’re often saving clients hundreds, sometimes over a thousand dollars a month. For a small business, that’s real money-that’s bonuses, team events, appreciation.”
That’s the power of seeing what’s really going on and responding while it still matters.
See the Clues. Spot the Competition.
Customers and members don’t announce when they open a credit card elsewhere. But they do make payments on it. The same goes for new savings accounts, mortgage transfers, or outgoing deposit transfers. These behaviors leave behind clues right inside your own core data.
Deloitte stresses the importance of moving beyond broad segmentation to “personalizing for a segment of one.” This means using real-time behavioral data to deliver uniquely tailored experiences and offers to each customer or member, dramatically increasing engagement, loyalty, and wallet share.
Here’s the challenge: Core systems weren’t built to spot competitors. Even when the data exists, it’s often hard to read. Vendor codes, ACH descriptors, and payment metadata are messy and inconsistent. What looks like a generic transfer might actually be a credit card payment, a payroll run, or a merchant services deposit.
So, what should you look for? Signals of external relationships include:
For commercial accounts:
- Outgoing deposit transfers
- Merchant services deposits from providers like Square, Stripe, or Clover
- Credit card payments to other institutions
- Insurance premium payments
- Loan repayments to external lenders
- Commercial mortgage payments
- Payroll transfers to third-party processors
For consumer accounts:
- Outgoing transfers to external deposit products
- Credit card payments
- Transfers to high-yield savings, wealth, or investment platforms
- Payments to insurance providers
- Consumer loan or mortgage payments
These aren’t predictions. They’re real-time indicators of money moving out the door.
If your team doesn’t have the tools to decode these behaviors, consider partnering with a vendor that can. The sooner you see the signal, the faster you can act, and win it back.
Mark B. Egan makes a critical point in his article, Most Financial Institutions Have a Data Problem, Not a Deposit Problem: “Most banks and credit unions aren’t lacking deposits. They’re just not using the data they already have.”
Real-time transaction intelligence is changing that. Instead of waiting for a quarterly trend or a predictive model, some institutions are zeroing in on actual customer or member behavior as it happens. CC Bank’s Lee Lamb argues, “The opportunity isn’t gone. You just need to see it in time.”
New Accounts Don’t Plug Leaks
Yes, acquisition matters. But if your bank or credit union is leaking deposits from existing relationships, new accounts won’t fix that.
That’s why more institutions are shifting their focus from new logos to deeper engagement. And when they pair real-time data with targeted outreach? Win rates spike.
Start by identifying customers and members who:
- Hold high balances but minimal product relationships
- Routinely move funds to external providers
- Use products from banks that are acquisition targets (and may be looking to switch)
In consumer banking, that might include individuals with consistent outgoing payments to external savings accounts, wealth management, or cards. In commercial banking, it might be businesses using external credit lines, treasury portals, or merchant services.
Credit unions should also factor in engagement breadth: members with multiple product relationships but declining balances or increasing outbound payments may be prime targets for re-engagement.
Some institutions have reported 50% to 80% success rates when outreach is based on actual behavior, not a hunch.
Make your products irresistible: If a customer or member chooses a fintech for savings or a megabank for credit, it’s usually not about loyalty — it’s about relevance. Research from Kasasa shows people are willing to switch institutions for better rewards, convenience, or rates.
Understanding what products customers and members are using elsewhere can help shape your own. Do your rewards stack up? Are your savings rates competitive? Are you positioned as a primary provider—or a placeholder?
Here’s what to do:
- Identify the most common competitor products in use among your customer base.
- Evaluate your current offerings against those.
- Make smart changes to rates, rewards, or bundling to compete.
For credit unions, that might mean modernizing without losing the human touch. For banks, especially on the commercial side, it could mean simplifying onboarding, streamlining treasury tools, or tailoring bundles to specific industries.
If You Could See It, You Could Win It.
Banks and credit unions don’t need massive data teams to compete. They need visibility.
And once they have it? They’re no longer the backup. They’re back in the game.
The smartest move they can make? Use core transactional data to spot what customers and members are already doing. Uncover what they need right now, and respond with relevance.
