Five tests I apply before the bank speaks

A Belgian regulated savings account pays a base rate and a fidelity premium, and the premium applies only to money that stays for twelve consecutive months. Both components appear in our advertising; the question I work on is which one the reader sees first and what they will then expect on their statement. I ask for a worked example in every rate campaign, showing a realistic balance kept for a year and the same balance withdrawn earlier. Treasury sets the rates and owns their economics; I own the description and the tests of whether customers understood it. I also look at the back book. When we advertise a better rate to newcomers, existing customers on older accounts should hear about it from us first, with a plain account of what moving their money involves.

Branch closures are decided by the network and finance teams against visit numbers, costs and the alternatives available. My role begins before the decision is announced. I ask for what a customer needs in order to plan, not only the facts that present the decision well: the nearest branch and its distance, the public-transport connection, whether a cash machine remains in the village and what can no longer be done locally. I prefer at least twelve weeks' notice, and I meet local councils before the letters arrive. Customers who rarely use the app need a named alternative, whether a telephone appointment, a home visit or a weekly service hour in a municipal building. Afterwards I want to know what happened to those customers, not only how many of them complained.

Belgian law gives consumers a right to a basic banking service, and many of the people who ask us for one have been refused or closed elsewhere. They include recent arrivals, people in collective debt settlement and older customers without a smartphone. Advertising to them is easy; serving them is the work. I measure the share of basic accounts in regular use after six months rather than the number opened. In 2025 we opened 4,300, and 71% were in regular use at six months. We rebuilt the welcome pack with debt advisers, removed jargon from refusal and closure letters, and trained forty branch colleagues to run assisted app sessions. I do not present this programme as a growth line, and I resist proposals that would turn it into one.

Sustainability language in bank marketing now attracts closer attention from European regulators and consumer organisations, particularly where a claim is general or depends on what customers do later. My own rule is simpler than any guidance: we say what the bank does and what it can measure. A rate discount linked to an improved energy certificate is a fact we can verify. A tonnage of carbon saved by borrowers we have never followed up is not. I ask the sustainability team to name the evidence and its owner for every claim, and I keep a register of withdrawn wording so that it does not return in a later brief. This sometimes leaves our advertising less striking than a competitor's. I would rather explain that to the executive committee than to a complaint handler.

Fair-treatment expectations in European retail banking increasingly ask firms to show customer outcomes, not only compliant documents. I have built that into the marketing cycle. Before a significant launch, we test the main message with at least 300 customers, including people who rarely use digital channels, and ask them to explain the offer back in their own words. After launch, the complaints, contact-centre and marketing teams review a monthly sample of calls and letters together. When understanding falls below the level we agreed, we change the wording before we change the budget. The results go to the board risk committee once a year. The measure is imperfect, and the paper says so, but it has moved several executive discussions from competing opinions to shared evidence.