River Valley Community Federal Credit Union serves 7,200 members out of just two branches in southern Arkansas. Since its membership is spread out across the state and sometimes live as far away as 50 miles from a branch, it rolled out a video banking tool earlier this month to add a more human touch.

The video banking launch is the result of an effort to find ways for customers who can’t go to branches to directly interface with staff members, the credit union’s CEO Mark Hixson said in an interview with Bank Innovation. The credit union is rolling out the video banking tool as a standalone app with a split screen, with one screen showing the teller and the other displaying the forms, slides and even a place to sign documents. River Valley is only using the tool for loan originations right now because it worked well on a variety of customers during a testing phase over the past three months, but he said he hopes to use the tool for account openings in the future.

River Valley’s embrace of a human-assisted digital banking model is in step with research suggesting that customers want to interact with bank staff members for more complex banking needs. For instance, according to PwC’s 2018 Digital Banking Consumer Survey, more than 50% of consumers apply for a loan or deposit account in a physical branch.

The credit union is relying on humans to do identity verifications for the video banking tool. Employees can pull up members’ identification and will ask authentication questions if someone’s appearance doesn’t match. For new accounts, the tool allows users to upload pictures of an ID.

POPio, the company that developed the technology behind the video banking capability, said the tool can handle thousands of calls simultaneously. “We can scale as quickly and as fast as a financial institution desires,” said founder Gene Pranger.

Despite the high hopes for the video banking tool, there are questions around how quickly it can scale. Bob Meara, a senior analyst at the financial consulting firm Celent’s banking practice, argues that the expense of video banking systems means banks need a high adoption rate to generate a significant enough return on investment. 

A Celent survey from February 2018 showed only 2% of adults prefer a video chat with their bank for either a quick or lengthy question. According to Meara, a small bank would be better served to engage with secure messaging. “Text conversations are asynchronous,” he said. “A banker could be engaging more than one member at the same time. You can’t do that with video.”

Hixson admits that limited cellular access in some areas could result in accessibility challenges. Despite this risk, the credit union still thinks the feature is a worthwhile initiative because it helps members interact with their financial institution. 

“I really think it goes back to who we are as a culture,” Hixson said. “There’s a real desire for our members to interact face-to-face with people who know them.”