Banking customers still want their banks, building societies and insurers, to offer traditional branch services, despite the increase in use of digital channels, according to a study by British Telecommunications (BT) and Avaya.

The online survey, which involved 2,000 consumers from the UK, France and Spain, found that four out of five people visited a branch in the year prior to the survey and around 48% stated that having a named individual to email or phone would help them warm to their financial service providers.

Around 55% of respondent think that banks, building societies and insurers have focused too much on automating services, while 57% say that they are too faceless.

One half of people believe that video as a contact channel would help build trust and would help in creating better relationship with their financial service providers.

BT Global Services global banking and financial markets president, Tom Regent, said banks, building societies and insurers looking to build loyalty and win new business will find this research very useful indeed.

"The research shows that people have a huge appetite for new technologies that make companies easy to do business with but still want the human touch of traditional service.

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"Successful financial services companies will be those that strike the right balance between automation and human interaction — whether that interaction takes place face-to-face or is delivered over the phone, video or web-chat," Regent added.