OHIO BANK BECOMES A SUPERMARKET OF SERVICES

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 11, 1993                   TAG: 9304090070
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-4   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: JIM KING COX NEW SERVICE
DATELINE: COLUMBUS, OHIO                                LENGTH: Medium
OHIO BANK BECOMES A SUPERMARKET OF SERVICES
Peggy Kissell sat patiently in the lobby with her young son, waiting for the travel agent to hang up the phone before she stepped into his office to book a family vacation.
Across the room, another woman poured a cup of coffee and picked up a magazine as she waited to talk to a real estate agent. And about 30 feet away, a half dozen other customers stood under a peaked glass roof, waiting in line for the next available teller.
Is this the future of retail banking? Who knows? But officials at Ohio-based Banc One Corp. are betting this radical approach of going after consumer business is going to catch on.
The concept at the company's Sawmill Financial Center here is simple: Get as many consumers in the door as possible, seven days a week. And once they're in, sell them everything you can - from cruises to credit cards to home equity loans and mutual funds - even if some of them aren't Banc One products.
"We want to control the relationship," said Banc One President Donald McWhorter. "In order to do that, we have to provide whatever service the customer wants, whether it's a traditional banking product or not."
For years, the company has been tinkering with branch redesign and new-product offerings, and often is cited as being on the cutting edge of consumer banking issues. While officials of the company say they've scored big with these so-called financial marketplaces, other bankers, including some in Atlanta, aren't so sure.
Each of the about 40 branches looks more like a retail center than a bank. Customers are greeted as soon as they walk in the door and can easily spot the departments they need by looking at the blue script neon signs on the wall. Depending on the location, they can choose from tax and legal services or real estate and travel agents. Of course, a menu of traditional banking services, like home mortgage lending and brokerage and trust accounts, also is available.
And if customers just want to deposit their paychecks, they can do that, too. But they have to walk past everything else to reach the teller line.
By the way, there's no elevator music here. They've got Top 40 playing overhead.
"They have taken a page right out of the retailers' book," said Charles Forbes, a New Jersey-based consumer banking consultant. "It's like walking through a grocery store: You have to walk past the candy and the potato chips to get to the milk and eggs.
"This is the epitome of pushing the envelope."
Despite such praise, not all bankers are sold on the approach. Like Banc One, they see the need to sell more products to consumers, especially investment vehicles such as mutual funds. But some believe it can be accomplished just as well for less money.
They say the future of retail banking is dependent on converting branch personnel from deposit takers to salespeople. If one can't do that, they contend, even the most expensive bells and whistles won't help.
And if you can, they say, the bells and whistles don't really matter.
"Retail banking is not necessarily like the retail experience in general," said Ken Lewis, president of the consumer banking unit at NationsBank. "Consumers don't go out shopping for financial products, it's a little more thought out than that.
"You have to separate the substance from the sizzle. It looks great and sounds great, but we haven't found a way to make money with something like that."
However, Banc One officials say the marketplace approach is profitable. They say volume in those branches is about 25 percent greater than at normal branches.
For the outside merchants - the real estate and travel agents - being in a bank branch is a plus. The agent who served Kissell said at least half of her customers just walk in from the bank, which is exactly what Kissell did.
"I've always liked Banc One," she explained as she booked a ski trip to Pennsylvania. "I've always had a good experience with the bank and we wanted to go on a trip, so I thought I'd come in here and give it a shot."
Beginning this year, Banc One also is installing about 400 scaled- down versions of the marketplaces called "personal investment centers."
Memo: ***CORRECTION***

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB