Health is Wealth: How Banks can help their customers remain healthy

Banks and Customer Health 

‘Health is Wealth’ is an age old saying. Banks have been traditionally associated with ‘Wealth’ part of the customers, but I believe now it’s a high time for the Banks to be involved in the ‘Health’ part also.  Being a part of customers’ health regime is the new mantra. It has dual benefits, it does help the customer in creating a healthy lifestyle and also gives a positive brand image to the company which becomes a part of it.

Mobile companies are coming up with various health trackers like pedometers, heart rate sensors, temperature sensors etc. There are loads of companies coming up with mobile apps for tracking health data and sensors. Corporates arrange health related activities and sessions for their employees and customers and so on.

There are many ways in which the banks can get involved and make the health related aspects of the customer a part of their product offering.  Listing some of the ways in which banks can incentivize the customers to adopt a healthy lifestyle.

• Having credit/debit card points as health points which can be redeemed for health related items.
• Setting up ATM machines/kiosks in gyms/health clubs. Providing special discounts/benefits for transacting through them.
• Tieups with various gyms/health clubs for special packages
• Providing health checkups as a retail account offering
• Making health data a part of data collection for account opening or loan disbursements.
• Offering product features based on the health score of the customer just like features are customized based on profession, income levels, demography etc. 

Health Score

 For a Bank, Financial health of a customer is of immense importance. However, if it is a retail customer, apart from the financial health, the physical health of the customer also becomes important because it directly impacts the earning capacity of the individual.

Just like credit score, risk score, there should be a health score maintained for retail each customer by the Bank.

There should be proper health score identified for each individual customer based on the health details obtained from various sources like insurance companies, health agencies, hospitals etc. For certain products like insecured personal loans, this will be especially useful as Banks generally do not have any collateral against the loan and the decision is based on the earning capacity of the customer. With the kind of lifestyle people are having these days, certain disease and ailments which were common in people above 50 or 55 years of age earlier are becoming common in the age group of 30+

Maintaining a good health score may prompt the customers to have a good health regime. It will also help the banks to be a bigger part of the lives of the customers.

Conclusion

 Today e-commerce companies, automative companies, manufacturers are introducing their own financial products and providing stiff competition to banks. If the banks want to survive then they need to come up with innovative products and also get more involved in the life of the customers. Focus on health part of the customers can provide that much needed impetus to the banks. From customers point of view, it will make the banks not just the guardians of their wealth but also health.