Coronavirus is changing the way we bank

Coronavirus is prompting new ways of dealing with customers and transactions at the banks.

The digital payments revolution and collapse in traffic through bank branches over the past decade has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

It’s no secret that the digital payments revolution and collapse in traffic through bank branches over the past decade has been accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.

One unforeseen result of this is National Australia Bank’s temporary reconfiguration of 50 branches into training hubs so that staff can learn new skills that don’t require face-to-face interaction with customers.

About 350 people have been retrained, with a further 350 to complete the program over the next two weeks.

On the payments side, digital wallet transactions have been booming at Commonwealth Bank, partly for health reasons as customers try to avoid all forms of contact.

CBA has 7m digitally active customers, with about 2.5m using wallets.

For the nation’s biggest retail bank, the digital wallet segment covers payments on a mobile device using CBA tap and pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay.

Users spent $1bn in the month of March, up 17 per cent from the preceding month in a record number of transactions, according to Visa and MasterCard data.

The average monthly growth rate over the previous six months was 6.7 per cent.

As for volume, the number of wallet payments spiked 8 per cent from February to 36 million, up from an average growth rate of 4.4 per cent over the past six months.

The previous record month was 34 million over the busy Christmas month of December.

CBA head of everyday banking Kate Crous said the average spend in March was $28, which showed that customer wallets were used for a wide variety of purchases.