Directors' Column

Below is the final column from Director, Simon Terry. Simon has resigned from the Board for now. Simon brought an independent mind, a clarity of thinking and an ability to synthesise a diversity of seemingly disparate ideas and concepts. As well as a genuine affection for Bank First, his expertise in the potential of digital capabilities will be missed. We thank him for his commitment, we wish him well and we feel confident that his desire to play a role in our future will not wane.

Banking in a digital world

If our recent experience of lockdown has taught us anything, it has been the ongoing digital transformation of our world. In education, teachers and students adapted to leverage new digital tools to continue the school experience. In healthcare, we saw an explosion of digital applications from telehealth appointments, to vaccine booking sites and even to our Covid certificates and check-in apps. Banking too is going through continuing change in digital capabilities and Bank First continues to invest to enable our Members to benefit from the ease and convenience of better digital experiences.

At the heart of the digital banking opportunities are the new capabilities that we can leverage through our phones and other devices. We continue to invest in upgrading our mobile banking app to bring more features, services and capabilities to Members. In the last few years, we have enabled real time payments options and added Apple Pay and Google Pay as new payment channels to make payments easier. We are also ensuring that Bank First Members can benefit from new industry developments like Open Banking, which gives consumers the ability to share their personal banking information with accredited third parties. Our home loan and personal loan processes are also being streamlined to better leverage the ability to deliver simple and rapid experiences to Members. We see these trends as essential to continuing to streamline banking for our Members.

Bank First has always valued the personal service we can provide to our Members. Our investment in new banking services will never be at the expense of our people’s ability to look after your needs. We want to be able to spend more time to help our Members achieve their goals and get on with life without worrying about their finances and future. We see the digital capabilities in banking supporting our core goal of continuing to care for our Members.

Simon Terry