What is the current and future role of bank branches in Portugal?

Abstract

Bank branches had a fundamental role in banks’ strategy over several years. They have however become obsolete leading to the recent decisions taken by various financial institutions to permanently close branches. The Millennial generation mindset and consumer preferences combined with a new era called digital transformation have promoted technological advances and presents new Client preferences that need to be addressed by financial institutions. This academic dissertation aims at understanding the operating model of banks’ branches in order to understand what drives Clients to go to branches and what kind of operations they perform there. With this goal in mind, an operational survey of Portuguese bank branches was carried out in order to understand banks’ current practices and how they should position themselves going forward. In addition, a survey was also conducted in order to make it possible to assess the needs of the Millennial generation and understand what should be the positioning of the banks in this new reality. The pandemic in which we are currently living has accelerated the transformation process and banks will have to make structural changes to their operating model in order to remain relevant to Clients. It is important that these changes take into consideration the needs of the Millennial generation that result in a migration from the physical to the digital channel.

Date of Award	8 Oct 2020
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Rute Xavier (Supervisor)