What happened to one-stop shopping for financial services? 15-20 years ago, when Glass-Steagall was repealed to allow banks to sell insurance and securities, experts predicted the rise of the "financial supermarket." The seers predicted a flood of customers to these supermarkets, attracted by the ease and value of having all of their needs met under one roof.
One problem: it never happened.
The customers never flocked because a true "financial supermarket" never materialized. Oh, banks and credits started selling insurance and securities, this is true (they still do). But they never put together a coherent, integrated product set for customers.
No relationship pricing.
No consolidated statements.
No unified customer service (banks and CU's still segregate "bank" products and "investment" products, often with infighting between the groups).
After a number of big banks couldn't make the supermarket concept work, experts wrote it off, saying things like, "customer really don't want all of their money in one place."
I don't believe that. I think the yearning for simplicity around money is too widespread for that to be true. But until a bank or CU does it right, there's now way for us to know for sure.
And with all of the pressure and desire that's out there now to turn back the clock on the financial services industry, we may never know.
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