Why Banks Struggle to Win a Customer’s Second Account

Retail banking customers are increasingly spreading their money across multiple institutions, creating a major growth challenge for banks and credit unions. Winning the first checking account is no longer enough. Financial institutions must stay relevant long after account opening if they want to capture a customer’s next deposit, loan, savings account or investment relationship.

According to JD Power’s 2026 U.S. Retail Banking Satisfaction Study, the average retail checking customer now holds three deposit accounts across different institutions. The study surveyed 107,059 customers of the largest banks in the United States between January 2025 and January 2026.

The research also found that 20% of customers had moved money away from their primary bank during the previous three months, compared with 17% a year earlier. Every account held elsewhere represents business the primary financial institution could have captured.

“If you’re not relevant when a customer’s need arises, you’ve opened the door for them to think about whoever was relevant in that moment,” says Jennifer White, senior director of banking and payments intelligence at JD Power.

The Paycheck Gives Banks an Important Advantage

The institution receiving a customer’s paycheck often has the clearest view of what that person may need next. Direct deposits, recurring payments and changing account balances can provide useful clues about a customer’s financial priorities.

However, many banks fail to act on those signals. They send one product offer soon after an account is opened and then stop communicating. Institutions that successfully win a second product take a longer-term approach. They continue presenting relevant offers, use customer data more effectively and prepare branch and contact center employees to complete the sale.

Key Banking Cross-Sell Trends

• Affluent, financially healthy and younger customers are among the most likely to move money away from their primary bank.
• Only 9.7% of bank marketers use data to tailor interactions to individual customers, according to an American Bankers Association survey.
• Approximately half of offer redemptions occur through branch and contact center employees, according to Movemint CEO Brian Bodell.
• Customers rank personal service second only to trust among the factors influencing bank satisfaction.

Data Signals Often Arrive Too Late

Banks and credit unions frequently discover that a customer has opened an account elsewhere only after funds begin leaving. At that stage, the customer has already made a decision and established a relationship with another institution.

“So many of the indicators that you’d have, even in transactional data, are going to be lagging,” White says.

Identifying customer needs earlier requires access to information that is often distributed across multiple systems. Transaction history may sit in the core banking platform, while loan information, digital banking activity and account engagement data may be stored elsewhere.

In a November 2025 American Bankers Association survey of 130 bank marketers, integrating information across systems was identified as the leading obstacle to data initiatives. Only 9.7% of respondents said their institutions use data to personalize interactions for individual customers.

“Some banks are doing a better job than others,” White says. “A lot of it has to do with the modernization of their data infrastructure and where they stand along that path.”

Digital banks and neobanks often have an advantage because they were built on newer technology platforms and do not face the same legacy infrastructure challenges as many traditional institutions.

Limited staffing creates another barrier. Nearly half of the marketers surveyed by the American Bankers Association said their bank had two or fewer employees dedicated to data-related work.

Steps Banks Can Take

• Map where customer information is stored, including core banking, loan origination and digital banking systems.
• Assign a clear owner to each major data source.
• Launch an initial campaign for two or three products using data that is already accessible.
• Train at least two employees to retrieve and apply customer data so the program does not depend on one person.

Customers Are Dividing Their Money Among Institutions

JD Power found that affluent, financially healthy and under-40 customers are particularly likely to move funds away from their primary bank. These customers generally open additional accounts for one of two reasons: to improve their financial benefits or to organize their money more effectively.

Financial benefits may include promotional interest rates, fee waivers tied to balance thresholds or lending discounts. For example, a credit union may offer a lower auto loan rate when a customer opens a checking account.

Organization is another major motivation. Customers may keep daily spending in one account while placing emergency funds, travel savings or near-term financial goals in another.

This behavior is changing how banks should define customer primacy. Historically, institutions have focused on deposit balances. Yet a customer’s balance may increase at one bank while most of the person’s income and financial activity flows through another institution.

Customers often still identify one institution as their primary provider. In many cases, it is the bank that receives their direct deposit and manages most of their transfers.

How to Protect the Primary Relationship

• Offer existing customers competitive rates and promotions instead of reserving the best deals only for new accounts.
• Make it easy to open goal-based savings accounts through digital banking.
• Track where direct deposits arrive and where outbound transfers are going.
• Measure primary banking relationships using paycheck activity, transfer patterns and engagement, not balances alone.

Successful Cross-Sell Programs Continue for Months

Many cross-selling programs fail because they rely on a single offer. Brian Bodell, CEO of New York-based fintech Movemint, says financial institutions need to continue engaging customers instead of making one attempt and abandoning the opportunity.

Institutions generating stronger results often run campaigns lasting 60 to 90 days. A new message is delivered every two or three weeks, primarily through email and digital banking. Customers may receive two or three relevant offers during the campaign.

Preapproved offers generally perform better than broad invitations to apply. They tend to produce higher redemption rates and lower delinquency because the institution has already assessed the customer’s eligibility.

Between scheduled campaigns, banks can use trigger-based marketing to respond to meaningful changes in a customer’s financial activity. Core systems can be reviewed regularly for events such as large incoming deposits or new recurring payments to another lender.

A large deposit may indicate an opportunity for wealth management services. A new payment to another financial institution could suggest that the customer has a mortgage or loan relationship elsewhere.

These programs depend heavily on consistent staffing. Employee departures, mergers and core system conversions can interrupt campaigns and cause valuable opportunities to disappear.

“Your members, or your customers, really don’t care about your merger,” Bodell says. “You’ve got to keep feeding the funnel.”

Best Practices for Second-Product Campaigns

• Build campaigns around 90-day cycles.
• Send a new customer touchpoint every two or three weeks.
• Lead with preapproved offers for two or three relevant products.
• Refresh eligibility frequently so customers receive current offers.
• Maintain campaign activity during staff turnover, mergers and core system conversions.

Frontline Employees Often Close the Deal

Digital channels may deliver most product offers, but branch and contact center employees frequently complete the transaction. Bodell says approximately half of the offer redemptions observed through his company occur with the help of frontline staff.

A customer who contacts a bank about a separate issue may learn that they are preapproved for another product. If the employee can complete the offer during the same interaction, the bank has a better chance of converting interest into a funded account.

Frontline employees can be especially effective because customers often view them as trusted sources of guidance. However, employees must know which offers are available and understand when it is appropriate to mention them.

Bodell recommends offering branch and contact center employees a fixed incentive for each redeemed offer that becomes funded.

Customer interactions also have a direct impact on satisfaction. JD Power found that personal service ranks second only to trust among the factors that influence retail banking satisfaction. At the same time, satisfaction with personal service interactions declined during the previous 12 months.

Personalization Requires More Than a Product Pitch

Training determines whether a product recommendation feels helpful or intrusive. Employees should use the customer’s behavior and financial circumstances to explain why a product may be relevant.

They should also discuss both the benefits and potential tradeoffs instead of presenting every offer as the perfect solution. A genuinely personalized recommendation connects the product to the customer’s goals and helps the person make an informed decision.

Ways to Improve Frontline Conversions

• Display preapproved offers on teller and contact center screens.
• Provide employees with clear product eligibility and talking points.
• Reward staff members for offers that are redeemed and funded.
• Train employees to connect recommendations to customer behavior.
• Require staff to explain product benefits, costs and tradeoffs.

The Bottom Line for Banks and Credit Unions

Customers are comfortable dividing their financial relationships among several institutions. As a result, banks and credit unions cannot assume that winning a checking account means they have won the broader relationship.

The strongest institutions use transaction signals, direct deposit activity and customer behavior to identify needs before competitors do. They maintain cross-sell campaigns for several months, refresh offers regularly and equip frontline employees to provide relevant advice.

Winning the second account requires persistence, better data integration and a more personalized customer experience. Financial institutions that continue engaging customers after account opening will be better positioned to retain deposits and expand relationships in an increasingly competitive banking market.

Source: TheFinancialBrand.com