8The Universal Experience
We were wrong about Universal Banking. Few cost efficiencies come from merging many functions in a single bank. —John Reed, former Chairman and CEO of Citibank
Your financial life is supposed to follow a fairly predictable pattern, at least in the developed world. You start off in school with a basic student deposit account, you might even visit the bank on a school field trip or excursion. Then you graduate high school and take on a part-time job. If you go off to university or college, you might take on a student loan (if you live in those primitive countries that make education a capitalist exercise) and if you don’t, you’ll likely start your first full-time job (or maybe a couple of part-time jobs). You take out a car loan to get your first car. Then you’re thinking about getting married, getting your first home, and a few years after that you’ve got credit cards, life insurance, income protection, a second mortgage for an investment property—and you’re starting to think about retirement.
This is the dream customer profile of the Universal Banker. Get them while they’re young, and then every single banking product you ever need will be provided by the bank you grew up with in your home town. You’ll constantly be cross-sold and upsold to, and because you “trust” the bank that gave you your first bank account, you’ll simply use them as a one-stop shop for every banking product you’ll ever need. They were there when you opened your first account, ...