Banking briefing: How a digital brand is helping a Louisiana-based bank to lock in more customers in underbanked communities
- Louisiana-based Fidelity Bank is hopping on the bandwagon by launching its own digital brand called ANDI.
- From competition and consumer perceptions to real estate prices, we dive into why Fidelity Bank built ANDI and how they settled on the tone for their new brand.
With competition rising in the digital banking space, Louisiana-based Fidelity Bank is hopping on the bandwagon by launching its own digital brand called ANDI.
ANDI comes after Fidelity Bank identified a gap between the traditional bank’s reach and the expanse of the underserved communities in Louisiana. In 2021, the FDIC found that while the national unbanked rate is 4.5%, Mississippi and Louisiana have some of the highest rates in the country at 11.1% and 8.1% respectively.
FIdelity Bank’s physical footprint is expanding, Chris Ferris, President & CEO at the firm, says that his firm is still fairly limited to the southeast region of the state and realized that a digital bank might be able to increase its reach beyond what branch expansion could offer.
But it isn’t just a question of reach that propelled Fidelity Bank to launch ANDI. The firm also noticed that consumer behavior (particularly that of the underserved) towards traditional banking systems and competition was making it harder to stay on top of the game.
Ferris believes there are two reasons for this:
