Banks have long built their brands on symbols and traits of trust like safety, structure and assurance. But of late, a spanner in the works in the guise of cyber crime is reworking the contours of the very identity of bank brands.
In this context, there is a need to reimagine bank brands and how they communicate with users.
Banking campaigns against cyber crime like “Kya aap murkh hain?” (Are you stupid?) shame and shift responsibility to the victim, instead of educating them.
In many cases, the weaknesses are not just human but also systemic, and that is what cyber criminals are targeting. To narrowly define these campaigns with the tonality of blame rather than that of understanding is to miss the point.
Such campaigns are damaging on two significant counts — one, people already battered by trauma are further silenced to not report their own case of cyber crime; and two, banks absolve themselves of any responsibility implicitly conveying “it’s your fault not ours”.
Cyber crimes have spared no one: IAS officers, police officials, bankers, judges, board members, top corporate honchos, industrialists, influencers, NRIs, students, and others, both young and old — have all been scammed.
Victims lose money not because they are stupid. It happens because when banking became digital, criminals found opportunities in an unprepared system.
For one, banks don’t educate customers well enough on the pitfalls of this new era. It is also telling that banks are unable to easily identify obvious patterns signalling crime — like the bank balance of mule accounts suddenly going up by 10,000 times of the average held daily balance. News is also replete with cases of bank employees colluding in cyber crimes.
Rebuilding Credibility
What we need instead is real investment in analytics and algorithms to block fraud in real time, but even more significantly, we need to see real intent to protect the ordinary citizen.
The unidimensional nature of communication from banks means that trust, which has historically been the single strongest pillar of banking, is quietly eroding.
Brand equity is not built by advertising campaigns and logos. It is built through consistency — what you say and what you deliver, over time. Many prominent bank logos are based on the idea of safety and security, and are meant to evoke a feeling of trust.
The real test of a brand is not the articulation in brand books, PowerPoints or annual reports — it is in the execution.
Banks today maintain that their job is to merely facilitate transactions on i nst r uctions by customers. F rom a consumer’s lens, banks are shifting towards commoditisation — after all, any bank can facilitate a transaction from account A to B.
There is an erosion of what ‘knowing the customer’ once meant. For previous generations, KYC was not just a checklist of documents, it was a relationship.
Earlier, banking was human — branch managers knew families, conversations went beyond money, and trust was built through familiarity.
Today, KYC has become a procedural hurdle. We share sensitive information with individuals we do not know, and the camaraderie of “chai at the bank” is now long lost.
Banks have optimised for efficiency by encouraging digital banking and discouraging visits to the branch; but in the process, they have lost human connection and intimacy.
This loss of human understanding is precisely what makes customers more vulnerable and banks less capable of protecting them.
In this era of cyber crime, a good starting point for brands to fight back against it would start with gaining a better understanding of customers as humans and not mere numbers.
Banks cannot operate as faceless transaction enablers while signalling trust and custodianship. There is a vast contrast in the say versus do. And for a category like banks, trust once lost cannot be reclaimed by any amount of branding.
The author is a brand consultant. Views expressed are personal.
In this context, there is a need to reimagine bank brands and how they communicate with users.
Banking campaigns against cyber crime like “Kya aap murkh hain?” (Are you stupid?) shame and shift responsibility to the victim, instead of educating them.
In many cases, the weaknesses are not just human but also systemic, and that is what cyber criminals are targeting. To narrowly define these campaigns with the tonality of blame rather than that of understanding is to miss the point.
Such campaigns are damaging on two significant counts — one, people already battered by trauma are further silenced to not report their own case of cyber crime; and two, banks absolve themselves of any responsibility implicitly conveying “it’s your fault not ours”.
Cyber crimes have spared no one: IAS officers, police officials, bankers, judges, board members, top corporate honchos, industrialists, influencers, NRIs, students, and others, both young and old — have all been scammed.
Victims lose money not because they are stupid. It happens because when banking became digital, criminals found opportunities in an unprepared system.
For one, banks don’t educate customers well enough on the pitfalls of this new era. It is also telling that banks are unable to easily identify obvious patterns signalling crime — like the bank balance of mule accounts suddenly going up by 10,000 times of the average held daily balance. News is also replete with cases of bank employees colluding in cyber crimes.
Rebuilding Credibility
What we need instead is real investment in analytics and algorithms to block fraud in real time, but even more significantly, we need to see real intent to protect the ordinary citizen.
The unidimensional nature of communication from banks means that trust, which has historically been the single strongest pillar of banking, is quietly eroding.
Brand equity is not built by advertising campaigns and logos. It is built through consistency — what you say and what you deliver, over time. Many prominent bank logos are based on the idea of safety and security, and are meant to evoke a feeling of trust.
The real test of a brand is not the articulation in brand books, PowerPoints or annual reports — it is in the execution.
Banks today maintain that their job is to merely facilitate transactions on i nst r uctions by customers. F rom a consumer’s lens, banks are shifting towards commoditisation — after all, any bank can facilitate a transaction from account A to B.
There is an erosion of what ‘knowing the customer’ once meant. For previous generations, KYC was not just a checklist of documents, it was a relationship.
Earlier, banking was human — branch managers knew families, conversations went beyond money, and trust was built through familiarity.
Today, KYC has become a procedural hurdle. We share sensitive information with individuals we do not know, and the camaraderie of “chai at the bank” is now long lost.
Banks have optimised for efficiency by encouraging digital banking and discouraging visits to the branch; but in the process, they have lost human connection and intimacy.
This loss of human understanding is precisely what makes customers more vulnerable and banks less capable of protecting them.
In this era of cyber crime, a good starting point for brands to fight back against it would start with gaining a better understanding of customers as humans and not mere numbers.
Banks cannot operate as faceless transaction enablers while signalling trust and custodianship. There is a vast contrast in the say versus do. And for a category like banks, trust once lost cannot be reclaimed by any amount of branding.
The author is a brand consultant. Views expressed are personal.
(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this column are that of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economictimes.com.)
