Banking Trends That Are Here to Stay

06Jun

More than ever, customers are turning to online banking to pay bills, transfer funds, and handle transactions they would have visited a branch for just a few months ago.

Baby Boomers, the generation most reluctant to have downloaded their bank’s mobile app, have embraced online banking in record numbers. Shortly after businesses were ordered closed, The Senior List found 77% of older Americans had conducted a financial transaction online.

This embrace of mobile banking is one of the banking trends that is here to stay, says an article in Forbes.

“It’s not just Boomers who are swiping right on online banking,” says Forbes. Citing a Boston Consulting Group survey conducted in June, the article notes that in the first three months of the pandemic 44% of 18-34 year olds enrolled for the first time in online or mobile banking.

Overall, Fidelity National Information Services, a service provider to the banking industry, reported new mobile banking registrations increased by 200%, and mobile banking traffic increased 85%.

“Once customers experience the convenience of mobile, they very well may never go back to traditional banking,” the Forbes article says. The Boston Group found a quarter of the new remote banking users claim they will visit bank branches less frequently in the future or not at all.

While e-commerce has exploded during the pandemic, banks have taken steps to streamline the payment process in brick and mortar stores. Forbes says some banks upgraded physical debit and credit cards to enable tap to pay. “Consumer usage of platforms like Apple Pay and retailer deployment of embedded contactless payment terminals like Square has also reached unprecedented levels,” the article reports.

In one area that before COVID hadn’t attained much traction, fintech startups and the industry generally have seen a spurt in demand for money management tools. Though 75% of respondents to a survey reported never using a personal finance app, since the pandemic 16% have. Here, it’s Gen Z and Boomers that are more aggressively turning to these services. A SYKES survey reported 23% of Gen Z and 18% of Boomers said they were new users to personal finance and budget apps.

“Fintech is an ever-evolving landscape — and it’s one that the pandemic has sent shock waves rippling throughout,” says Forbes, which concludes on this note: “Thanks to fundamental shifts in the way consumers perceive and depend upon digital finance tools today, these fintech trends just may stick around long after people have holstered their hand sanitizer.”

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Accounting + Finance

Jun 6, 2023

A Computer Knows FIFO and LIFO. Only You Can Do NIFO

Accounting + Finance

Jun 6, 2023

A Computer Knows FIFO and LIFO. Only You Can Do NIFO

Just when you thought you had inventory accounting under control, here comes NIFO.

Where LIFO and FIFO are at least sort of intuitive, standing for Last In First Out and First In First Out, NIFO stands for Nose In, Fingers Out.

Huh?

Don’t worry, no accountancy board has adopted NIFO as any sort of standard, and none will since it’s a leadership guide to remind managers to, as Accounting Today explains, “lean in and be helpful (nose in); be a mentor, not a micromanager (fingers out).”

Wondering just what this has to do with accounting?

“NIFO is about providing guidance so a client (or member of your team) can make their own decisions about how to solve a problem or get things done,” writes Kyle Walters, author of The Personal CFO and partner at L&H CPAs and Advisors.

Addressing accounting firm managers and executives, Walters says, “Your job as a leader is to lean in and help people work through a problem without sticking your fingers all over their business.” In other words, accountants should consider themselves a member of the board of advisors for their clients.

It’s the responsibility of an advisor, Walters says, “to provide perspective and to ask the management team insightful questions to help the organization solve its own problems. You are not supposed to interfere with day-to-day operations.”

Apply the same thinking to the members of your firm and your team, he adds.

“As a leader at your firm, NIFO means helping your team members become problem solvers. You’re helping them think through problems.

“Don’t just give them the answer the way a micromanager does; make them come up with the answer.”

“This mindset,” Walters insists, “is more important than ever in today’s work-from-home era when managers are rarely in the same office as the people they supervise.”

“LIFO and FIFO can be handled by computers these days. Your new job is NIFO.”

Photo by Volkan Olmez on Unsplash

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