Financial Services Branding: Can You Bank On Your Brand?

UPDATED APRIL 2026

Traditional banks and credit unions have relied on name recognition and branch presence for decades, but that brand equity is eroding as digital competitors invest aggressively in marketing. Community banks and credit unions captured only 9% of new checking accounts opened in 2024, while digital banks and fintechs took 44%. Research shows that rebranded banks grew at nearly double the U.S. average rate over the past decade. Institutions that want to hold onto their brand advantage need to diversify their marketing channels, use first-party data to communicate more effectively, tell their community stories consistently, and maintain brand investment alongside technology upgrades.

For traditional banks and credit unions that enjoy strong name recognition, the value of their name carries equity. For many years, this has been a fixed dynamic that isn’t lost upon anyone in the industry. But the ground has shifted underneath it. Digital-first competitors have been pouring money into brand building, and the results speak for themselves. According to Cornerstone Advisors, community banks and credit unions combined captured only 9% of new checking accounts opened in 2024. That’s down from 16% just two years earlier. Digital banks and fintechs, meanwhile, took 44%.

Let that sink in for a second. Nearly half of all new checking accounts are going to institutions that didn’t exist 15 years ago. And they’re winning those accounts with marketing, because they certainly aren’t winning them with branch signage.

Conventional wisdom has been that this disruption means traditional institutions should invest more in technology. That’s true. But it can’t come at the expense of your brand. Let’s explore value of financial services branding for traditional banks and credit unions, and why your investment in digital capabilities needs a marketing strategy to match.

The Brand Equity Gap Is Real, and It’s Growing

Traditional banks and credit unions have felt the need to compensate for technology by placing more emphasis on digital capabilities. That’s a reasonable response. But here’s what their non-traditional competitors have been doing on the other side: spending aggressively on marketing in relation to total assets to close the name-recognition gap. Chime has over 22 million customers. Revolut has over 30 million globally. SoFi has become a household name. None of them existed before 2011.

This creates both an opportunity and a risk for traditional institutions. The opportunity is that you already have brand equity. People know your name. The risk is assuming that recognition will sustain itself without ongoing investment. It won’t. Brand equity is like a savings account: it earns interest when you contribute to it and drains when you stop.

And the data backs this up. According to Adrenaline’s 2026 banking research, rebranded banks realized a 13.6% compound annual growth rate, compared to the U.S. average of 7.4%. Rebranded financial institutions also saw customer acquisition above industry averages over the past decade. Branding isn’t a soft investment because it shows up in the numbers.

What’s Changed for Traditional Institutions

Several dynamics are putting pressure on the brand equity that traditional banks and credit unions have relied on for decades. None of them are going away.

The branch footprint is shrinking

Between 2017 and 2025, the national banking network contracted by 14.8%, dropping from 86,469 branches to 73,649, according to NCRC’s analysis of FDIC data. The pace of closures has slowed considerably (The Financial Brand reports that new openings are nearly offsetting closures), but the broader point remains. Physical locations have been a core piece of how traditional institutions build awareness for a long time. As that footprint contracts, branches and signage do less of the heavy lifting for brand visibility. Marketing has to pick up the slack, and in many cases, it hasn’t caught up yet.

Younger customers are choosing digital providers by default

Only 2% of Gen Z uses a community bank as their primary institution. Neobank adoption among Gen Z hit 61% in 2025. Here’s the part that should concern every traditional institution: 61% of Gen Z tend to bank at the same place as their parents. That means the window for building affinity with this generation is right now, while they’re still influenced by family relationships. Once they establish financial independence, getting them back is a much more expensive proposition.

How people discover financial institutions has fundamentally changed

Brand awareness used to come from a branch on the corner, a sponsorship at the local Little League field, or a billboard on the highway. Those still matter. But they’re no longer enough on their own. Your brand also needs to show up in search results and on the social platforms where younger customers spend their time. Google’s AI Overviews now appear on the majority of educational financial queries, and roughly 75% of Americans search with AI weekly. If your institution isn’t visible in those places, you’re ceding ground to competitors who are.

Authenticity is becoming a differentiator

A 2025 study published in the Journal of Business Research found that when consumers believe content is AI-generated, they perceive it as less authentic. As AI-produced marketing floods every channel, institutions that show up with real people and real expertise have an edge. This is good news for traditional banks and credit unions, where you have actual humans with actual credentials who can be the face of your brand. The question is whether your marketing takes advantage of that or buries it behind stock photos and corporate-speak.

How to Protect and Grow Your Financial Services Brand

The obvious answer is to spend more on marketing. We get it; nobody has an unlimited budget. Here are ways to get the most from what you’ve got.

Use first-party data to make every communication count

You’re sitting on a goldmine of customer data. Use it. Data collected directly from customer interactions gives you insight into preferences, behaviors, and needs that your competitors would love to have. When you integrate those insights into your marketing, your communications get more relevant and your relationships get stronger. This matters more now than it did a few years ago, because third-party cookies have been deprecated and privacy regulations keep tightening. The institutions that know their customers best will market to them most effectively.

Diversify where your marketing dollars go

With branches contributing less to brand awareness and more customers starting their banking journey online, your marketing mix needs to reflect how people find you today. According to the ABA Banking Journal’s 2026 marketing budget report, search engine marketing and SEO emerged as the top-performing channel for banks. That’s a meaningful shift. If your budget is still weighted heavily toward channels that don’t support digital engagement or online account opening, it’s time to reassess where your marketing dollars are going.

That said, this doesn’t mean abandoning traditional channels. It means making sure your mix reflects where your customers (and your future customers) spend their time. A regional bank doesn’t need the same media plan as a neobank, but it does need a plan that accounts for the fact that most people Google you before they walk into your branch.

Make sure your brand feels consistent everywhere

Your brand used to live in your branch lobby, your print ads, and your community sponsorships. Now it also lives in your mobile app, your Google Business Profile, your social media presence, your email campaigns, and whatever shows up when someone asks an AI chatbot about banks in your area. If the experience feels disjointed across those touchpoints (your app looks different from your website, your social tone doesn’t match your branch experience), it chips away at the trust you’ve built.

A brand audit that evaluates consistency across all customer-facing channels can surface gaps you didn’t know existed. These may seem minor in isolation, but they compound over time and can make a long-established institution feel dated.

Tell your community story loudly

One of the strongest advantages traditional institutions have over digital competitors is their community presence. A neobank can’t sponsor the local 5K, show up at the chamber of commerce meeting, or fund a small business loan with a handshake. But too many traditional institutions do these things without telling anyone about them.

This is where storytelling bridges the gap between what you do and how people perceive you. Share the stories of businesses you’ve helped grow. Talk about the community initiatives you’ve supported. Put these stories on your website and social channels. Video is especially effective here because it captures the human element that differentiates you from an app. According to CU Insight, 73% of consumers are more likely to choose a brand they feel personally connected to. For community-focused institutions, that personal connection is your core advantage. Your branding should make it impossible to miss.

Don’t let technology upgrades overshadow brand investment

This is where the balance gets tricky. Yes, you need a strong digital experience. Yes, you need a competitive mobile app. But dumping your entire budget into technology while starving your brand is a recipe for becoming invisible. You’ll have a great app that nobody knows about.

The smartest institutions are funding both sides of the equation. They’re upgrading their technology while maintaining consistent investment in brand advertising, community presence, and content marketing. Chime didn’t become a household name by having the best app. They became a household name by spending heavily on marketing while having a good app. Traditional institutions need that same mindset, just applied differently given their existing strengths and community roots.

Your Brand Is an Asset. Treat It Like One.

For traditional banks and credit unions, brand equity is one of the most valuable assets on the balance sheet that doesn’t show up on the balance sheet. It took decades to build, but it can erode faster than most leadership teams realize, especially when competitors are spending aggressively to close the recognition gap.

The institutions that will thrive over the next decade are the ones that invest in technology and branding at the same time. That means using first-party data to communicate more effectively and shifting the marketing mix to match how people actually discover financial services today. It means telling your community story consistently and investing in your brand as a long-term strategic asset.

Ready to Take a Hard Look at Your Brand?

If you’re not sure how your brand stacks up against the competition, or if your marketing investment has tilted too far toward technology at the expense of awareness, PriceWeber can help you find the right balance.

Or, call us at 502-499-4209 to talk with one of our experts today.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Community banks and credit unions captured only 9% of new checking accounts in 2024, down from 16% two years earlier, while digital banks and fintechs took 44%.
• Rebranded banks realized a 13.6% compound annual growth rate, compared to the U.S. average of 7.4%, showing that brand investment has a measurable impact on growth.
• The national branch network contracted by 14.8% between 2017 and 2025, which means marketing has to compensate for reduced physical brand visibility.
• Search engine marketing and SEO emerged as the top-performing channel for banks in 2025, reflecting how consumers now start their banking journey online.
• 73% of consumers are more likely to choose a brand they feel personally connected to, giving community-focused institutions a natural advantage if they tell their stories well.
• Institutions that fund technology upgrades while starving their brand risk becoming invisible; the strongest competitors invest in both simultaneously.