Barclays to launch video banking service

Barclays has announced plans for a video banking service to allow its customers to see an adviser at any time, seven days a week, over their mobile devices.

While several European banks are working on a similar service, Barclays is confident it will be the first in the region to launch a full mobile video banking operation.

Coutts, the UK's biggest private bank that is owned by Royal Bank of Scotland, also announced on Sunday that it would launch a pilot "video conference" service to allow clients to call their adviser through their mobile device.

The moves mark another advance in the digitisation of high street banking, which has already led to a sharp drop in people visiting branches as they do transactions on mobile applications instead.

The service, which could fuel fears of more bank branch closures, will initially be offered only to Barclays' wealthier Premier customers from December 8.

The bank plans to offer it to its mortgage, business and wealth management customers from early next year and to all its retail customers in a round-the-clock, 24/7 service by the end of 2015.

"We're trying to give customers a choice of when, where and how they bank with us but with the added comfort of a human face," said Steven Cooper, chief executive of personal banking at Barclays.

He said the bank had invested tens of millions of pounds in the service, which will initially be operated by about 50 staff in a video call-centre in Sunderland.

"We will have fewer branches, but the branch network will always exist and this is just about developing extra services on top of it to complement the branches," he said.

He added that the service would allow customers using sign language to communicate with the bank and could provide an alternative where the bank has closed a branch in an area. It could be used to take out a mortgage, open a savings account or discuss an insurance policy.

"There are several similar things in the pipeline at other banks, but this will be the first to be operational in Europe," said Julian Skan, managing director at Accenture for the banking industry in Europe, Africa and Latin America.

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"It will create a splash and convince some people to switch banks, but I'm not convinced that video will become the dominant format for interacting with banks," said Mr Skan. "The danger is that if a two-way video conversation does not work perfectly, the user will become frustrated."

However, Mr Cooper at Barclays said he was confident the system was "pretty resilient", adding that it worked "pretty well" with a 3G signal and "very well" over a WiFi connection.

The service will automatically connect customers to a specific adviser they have spoken to before, if they are available. Initially it will operate as a separate application, but Barclays plans to integrate it with its main mobile app soon.

Barclays has been an innovator in banking technology, notably with Pingit, a smartphone application that allows consumers to send money to someone using only their mobile phone number.

Some banks have launched video services for customers to use from a branch or an ATM. But apart from a few banks in India, such as ICICI, very few have launched 24/7 mobile video services that allow clients to see an adviser from anywhere and at any time.

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