Capital One bank has this new set-up called Capital One Cafe. Just NOT my normal bank experience. Seriously, just odd. Very odd.
No bank tellers. Ambassadors. Here’s an image of a majority of one location
To tackle the reason for my visit, the Cap One Ambassador guided me to a private room with a floor-to-ceiling Hard Plexiglass front, and whipped out a tablet. Is this what I have to get used to? My visit had to do with a Savings account, and said Ambassador was quite surprised that I had a Cap One card-with-a-chip. Wait, I’m not supposed to have one of those? If I’m not supposed to use the card, how would I get money from the Cap One ATM?
Well, at least I know a retail place that has Wifi available. Though, I am not sure if it would be a great place to be doing online financial transactions. Is this the future?
Hmm. I don’t drink coffee, and I can’t recall ever going to a cafe. I probably enter my bank once or twice a year, generally to do something involving cash, like convert larger bills to smaller ones. The rest of my banking I do either through the bank’s app on my phone (love depositing checks that way!) or on their web site (the bill pay service is wonderful).
None of my investing has any relationship to my banking, except when I transfer spending money to the bank as I need it. Of course that is initiated at my broker’s site, and the money appears in my bank account.
I had coffee in one once. They overbuilt branches and we use online banking. They’re trying to ameliorate their losses and attract the young and unbanked by selling coffee. Meh. Both the ambiance and free coffee at my credit union are better.
@spinning - My CU also has a small coffee counter/stand. Every once in a while, I will grab a free coffee. I have not tried the Capital One Cafe coffee - 08/15 was my first visit. The location is in a mall. A mall I have no been inside in many years, … decades, actually. Whether I visit again is a separate issue. I think I accomplished what I needed to accomplish late yesterday via an online transaction. But, yesterday’s visit identified a new issue. So indirectly, something good came out of the visit.
I think all the banks offer coffee now. But then so do all tbe barbershop and auto dealerships etc etc. Noticed the shift maybe 10 years ago. Barbershop also offer alcohol now… it’s just basically impossible to drink while you get a haircut. If something that requires you to be there in person to obtain a service (ie a haircut) has to sweeten the pot with beer and whiskey. Imagine what a bank (whose job is to manage electronic transactions) has to do to get ppl in the door. Same thing that happened to malls will happen to banks. Only hope is to make it a social experience (ie grab a beer with friends etc). But still begs the question… why? Why save the physical location. Any conversation needed can happen over the phone… why do I need to schedule time off from work to manage my own money and come to your location
Of course they do. Until the tariffs on Brazil kick in and the bean counters start to see the increasing cost with declining revenue as the recession takes hold.
I had one of those, wanted to get rid of the coffee machine in the break room because: cost. Think it’s unusual? Remember MoneyBall? Billy Beane had to get another owner to pay for soda in the clubhouse machine because his owner wouldn’t pay for it.