How financial institutions can generate deposit growth in today’s competitive landscape

The financial institution’s challenge: Winning the depositor’s attention

The challenge facing financial institutions is not simply that deposit growth has slowed. It is that you are operating in an attention economy and the rules have changed.

The term “attention economy” describes a world where human attention is the scarcest resource. People are bombarded with more information, more choices and more demands on their time than ever before. Every app notification, every social media feed, every fintech offer, every streaming service and every email is competing for the same finite resource: A person’s focus.

Traditional financial institutions must compete in the attention economy

Your customers and members are not sitting around thinking about where to put their deposits. They are thinking about their kids, their jobs, their health, the trip they are planning, the bill that is due or the notification that just popped up on their phone. In that context, a postcard about a CD rate special is not just ineffective. It is invisible.

This is a fundamental human problem. In an attention economy, people make financial decisions based on what earns their attention, what feels easy and what shows up at the right moment. They do not choose where to keep their money based on spreadsheets. They choose based on experience. The institutions that understand this will grow. The ones still leading with rate sheets and product features will watch deposits migrate quietly out the door.

The question every financial institution leader should be asking is not “How do we get more deposits?” It is “How do we earn and hold the attention of the people we want to serve, and what experience are we creating that makes them want to deepen their relationship with us?”

The competition is no longer just the bank down the street

Traditional financial institutions used to compete primarily with each other for a relatively captive audience. That world is gone. Today, every company with a financial product is competing for the same scarce resource: The depositor’s attention. And many of them are better at capturing it.

• Non-bank deposit capture: Retailers like Walmart now offer services that allow consumers to deposit cash or load checks directly onto debit and prepaid cards. That money, which historically would have been deposited at a traditional institution, is being captured and locked up outside the traditional banking system. Walmart is not offering a better rate. It is capturing attention at a place where people are already spending their time and converting that attention into deposits with a frictionless experience.
• Digital payment platforms: Platforms like PayPal, Venmo and Cash App allow users to maintain balances and move money without ever touching a bank account. Money held in these peer-to-peer (P2P) payment platforms is money not being deposited into a traditional institution. These platforms win the attention war because they designed the experience around how younger consumers already move through their day. They are not asking people to change their behavior. They are meeting them inside it.
• Advisor-directed alternatives: Money market funds offered through brokerage firms and mutual fund companies can deliver higher returns than a traditional CD or money market account. Brokerage sweep accounts automatically move balances above a set threshold into investment vehicles. Both reduce the share of funds held within financial institutions and the customer may not even realize the shift is happening because the experience was designed to be seamless. In an attention economy, the most dangerous competitors are the ones you do not even notice taking your deposits.
• Cryptocurrency and digital assets: Bitcoin, stablecoins and other digital assets represent a growing layer of competition, particularly among younger, more tech-savvy consumers who allocate portions of their savings outside of traditional deposit accounts. The crypto ecosystem has been remarkably effective at capturing and holding attention through community, content and a sense of participation that traditional banking has never offered.
• Single-purpose fintech wallets: This is the competition most institutions are not even thinking about. Platforms like Zola and Honeyfund allow consumers to park cash for weddings, honeymoons and other life milestones directly within niche fintech products. A generation ago, a couple saving for a wedding would have put that money in a local savings account. Today, that deposit may never touch a traditional institution. These platforms succeed because they captured attention at a specific life moment and built an experience around it. That is the playbook financial institutions need to learn from.

Add sustained inflation to this mix, and you have consumers who are more rate-aware, more willing to shop around and more open to alternatives than at any point in recent memory. Customer and member loyalty, while still real, is no longer enough to guarantee that deposits stay put. In an attention economy, loyalty follows attention. When you stop earning someone’s attention, you stop earning their deposits.

Why deposit growth matters more than most institutions realize

Stagnant deposit growth is not just a balance sheet issue. It is a signal that the institution is losing the attention battle, that its relationship with the community is weakening and that the experiences it offers are no longer compelling enough to hold people’s focus.

It pressures net interest margin

When core deposit growth slows, institutions turn to higher-cost funding sources like promotional CDs, brokered deposits or borrowings. That compresses the spread between what the institution earns on loans and what it pays for funding. A tighter net interest margin (NIM) reduces profitability and limits the institution’s ability to reinvest in the people, technology and experiences that drive future growth. It creates a vicious cycle: Less investment in the depositor experience leads to less attention, which leads to fewer deposits, which leads to more reliance on wholesale funding.

It erodes relationships across generations

The less money a customer or member holds at your institution, the thinner that relationship becomes. And here is the part that should concern every leader at a traditional financial institution: An estimated $124 trillion in wealth will change hands by 2048, most of it through inheritance.

If you lose the deposit relationship with a baby boomer or Gen X customer today, you are not just losing their balance. You are losing the connection to their children and grandchildren. It is human nature to look at a 30-year banking relationship and assume it will always be there. But will the beneficiaries who inherit that wealth know your institution? Will they trust it? Will they already have a relationship with you?

If the answer is no, those deposits will transfer to whoever has already earned the next generation’s attention. And in an attention economy, the next generation’s attention is being shaped right now, by every interaction, every notification and every curated experience they encounter. If your institution is not part of that, you are not just losing future deposits. You are losing the opportunity to even be considered.

The deposit growth strategy that actually works: Curating experiences that earn attention

Promotional rates, digital advertising and search engine optimization all have their place. You need a competitive product. You need to show up when people are searching. But none of those tactics address the core question: In a world where everyone is competing for your customers’ and members’ attention, are you creating an experience worth paying attention to?

The institutions that are growing deposits are not just collecting data or running campaigns. They are curating experiences around the real lives of the people they serve. They are using relationship intelligence to understand who someone is, what moment they are in and what would actually be helpful right now. Then they are showing up with that help before the customer has to look for it elsewhere.

That is how you win in an attention economy. Not by shouting louder, but by being more relevant.

Start with the data you already have

Most institutions are sitting on more behavioral data than they realize. Core systems, CRM platforms, marketing tools and market research all contain signals about who your most valuable households are, where wallet share opportunities exist, which customers or members may be at risk of moving money and which life events could create a natural reason to reach out.

The question is not whether you have the data. It is whether you are using it to design experiences that earn the depositor’s attention. What are your customer behaviors, account opening and closing patterns and channel usage data telling you? Are you reading those signals and acting on them or are they sitting in a system nobody looks at?

Too many institutions collect data and never turn it into action. The opportunity is not to buy more technology. It is to use what you already have to understand the person on the other side of the account and then build an experience around what that person actually needs. In an attention economy, data is only valuable if it helps you show up at the right time with the right message. Otherwise, it is just more noise.

Look at the full household, not just the primary account holder

If someone has banked with you for 30 years, what do you know about their spouse? Their adult children? Their grandchildren? Their beneficiaries? The family members who moved to another city but still have ties to the community?

This matters because modern banking is not as geographically limited as it used to be. A regional institution may be local in its roots, but if it offers strong digital services, mobile deposit, remote account access and ATM fee refunds, it can still serve the adult child who moved away. The relationship does not have to end just because the next generation relocated.

But someone has to reach out and say: “You can still bank with us.” And right now, at most institutions, that conversation is not happening. In an attention economy, silence is a choice. And it is a choice that hands the next generation’s attention to your competitors. The experience of being known, remembered and connected to your family’s institution, regardless of where you live, is an experience worth curating. And it is one almost nobody is offering.

Build curated experiences around life transitions

Two of the most valuable things people have are their time and their money. How they spend both matters deeply. In an attention economy, the institutions that earn a share of someone’s time will earn a share of their money. Financial decisions cluster around life transitions and those transitions are where deposit opportunities live.

The institutions that grow deposits are the ones that design their engagement around these moments, not as sales pitches, but as curated experiences that prove the institution understands what the customer is going through. When someone feels understood, you have their attention. When you have their attention, you have the opportunity to earn their deposits. When they feel like a number, they tune out, and once you have lost someone’s attention in this economy, getting it back is extraordinarily difficult.

Here is what experience-driven, attention-earning engagement looks like in practice:

Opening a new business

Not just new accounts, but a guided experience that covers treasury services, payroll, merchant processing and the financial structure of getting a business off the ground. This is not a product checklist. It is a relationship built around one of the most important decisions someone will ever make. A new business owner is paying attention to whoever helps them navigate the complexity. Be that institution.

A new baby on the way

A junior savings account that could become a relationship that lasts decades. This is how you build loyalty with a generation that fintechs are actively pursuing. But the experience matters. A personalized note, a savings milestone tracker or a simple “congratulations” at the right moment. Those small touches are what people remember. In a world of endless noise, a moment of genuine, personal attention is remarkable.

High school or college graduation

A first checking account, a conversation about saving and a reminder that they can manage their account remotely, no matter where school or a first job takes them. This is the moment where the institution either captures the next generation’s attention or loses it to whoever gets there first.

Getting married

Joint accounts, combined savings goals and a chance to bring a new household into the institution. While Zola is curating the wedding gift experience and capturing the couple’s attention (and their cash), your institution should be curating the “building a financial life together” experience. If a fintech platform can earn a couple’s attention during one of the most meaningful moments of their lives, so can you.

A child or grandchild’s wedding

An opportunity to help the family with savings goals and introduce the new couple to the institution.

Caring for aging parents

Guidance on managing accounts, power of attorney and estate planning. This is one of the most stressful financial moments in a person’s life. In these moments, people are not scrolling. They are searching for someone they can trust. An institution that shows up with practical, compassionate guidance is not just providing a service. It is creating an experience that earns attention and trust for a generation.

Receiving an inheritance

The single largest deposit opportunity most institutions will ever see, and the one they are least prepared for. If the beneficiary already has a relationship with the institution, the experience of transferring and managing inherited wealth should feel seamless and supportive. Whoever has the beneficiary’s attention at the moment of inheritance will likely hold those deposits for years to come.

Retirement

Helping customers manage distributions, consolidate accounts and plan for the next chapter. The experience should feel like a partnership, not a transaction.

Selling a business

A liquidity event that creates significant deposit and advisory opportunities. The business owner is navigating one of the most complex financial moments of their life. The institution that curates a thoughtful, guided experience around this event will earn a deep and lasting relationship.

Use data to power curated, attention-earning outreach

When life-event and behavioral data flows into a CRM, it becomes the foundation for something far more powerful than a mass email blast: Curated outreach designed to earn attention by being genuinely relevant.

This is where tactics like next-best-product recommendations and drip campaigns become effective. Not as generic marketing, but as experience design that respects the reality of an attention economy:

• A customer has a mortgage but no primary checking relationship? That is a next-best-product opportunity, but only if the outreach feels relevant and personal, not like a cold call. In an attention economy, irrelevant outreach does not just fail, it actively damages trust.
• A small business has operating accounts but no treasury services? That is a conversation waiting to happen, framed around making their business easier to run, not around cross-selling a product.
• A longtime customer’s adult child just graduated from college? That is a drip campaign triggered by a real-life event, not a calendar date. The experience of receiving a timely, relevant message that acknowledges what is happening in your life is what cuts through the noise. It is what builds the kind of trust that keeps deposits in place for decades.

The goal is to stop blasting everyone with the same CD rate special and start curating the experience. In an attention economy, the institutions that send fewer, better and more relevant messages will outperform the ones that send more. Make the outreach relevant. Make the offer personal. Make the relationship feel easier to expand.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can financial institutions grow deposits in a high-rate environment?

The better strategy is to pair competitive products with a deeper understanding of what is happening in your customers’ and members’ lives. Are they saving for a home? Helping a child through college? Preparing for retirement? Those life moments create deposit opportunities because they create a need for guidance and trust, not just yield.

The institutions that win deposits in a high-rate environment are the ones that do not just say, “Here is our rate.” They say, “Here is how we can help you make a better decision with your money.” They curate an experience around the decision, not just the product. In a high-rate environment where everyone is shouting about their APY, the institution that earns attention by being genuinely helpful is the one that keeps deposits. That might look like bundled relationship pricing, proactive outreach, stronger treasury conversations for small businesses, youth and young adult accounts or inheritance planning support.

How can financial institutions grow deposits without significantly increasing the cost of funds?

Stop treating deposit growth as a rate campaign and start treating it as a relationship intelligence strategy. That may include targeted rate pricing. Ultimately, the data is already there. The question is whether you are using it to design experiences that make people want to keep their money with you.

If a customer has a mortgage but no checking relationship, that is an opportunity. If a member is getting married, buying a home or caring for a parent, those are relationship moments. The goal is to make outreach more relevant and more personal so that expanding the relationship feels natural, not forced. When the experience of banking with you is easier, more personal and more attentive than going somewhere else, deposits grow without a rate war. You are not competing on price. You are competing on attention and relevance.

How can financial institutions compete with fintechs and online banks for deposits?

Fintechs are not winning on technology. They are winning the attention economy.

They know exactly who they are going after, they understand what those customers care about, and they build every interaction around those needs. While a local institution assumes geography ended the relationship with a customer’s adult child, an online bank is learning that person’s behaviors, interests, goals and money habits. They are curating the experience. They are showing up with the right message at the right time. They have figured out that in an attention economy, the institution that understands you best gets your money.

If your institution wants to compete, you need to get disciplined about persona development, customer journey mapping, and life-stage engagement. Know who you are trying to attract. Understand what motivates them. Anticipate what they need before they go looking for it somewhere else.

Competing with fintechs is not about having a better app. It is about curating an experience that makes the customer feel known, understood and valued. That is how you win their attention. And in this economy, attention is the deposit.

How Wipfli Can Help

We help financial institutions compete in the attention economy by turning depositor data into curated experiences that drive growth. Whether you need help building customer personas, mapping life-stage journeys, activating your CRM or developing a deposit growth strategy grounded in how people actually make financial decisions, we can help you design the kind of experience that earns attention, earns deposits and keeps them. Start a conversation

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