Settle down in your living room and, while surfing the web on your wide-screen TV, why not check the health of your bank account?

When you click on the link, a virtual bank clerk appears and tells you your current balance and advises you on any pre-approved or special offers. The new ISA deal sounds attractive, so you decide to book a face-to-face meeting with an advisor at your local branch, but you don't have to leave the comfort of your chair - the meeting will take place in your front room via a webcam.

The next day you are in the high street and you spot a poster offering special offers on mortgages. You scan one of the logos with your mobile phone and information is sent to you about the offer. Your bank also posts you documents with other personalised special offers.

Forerunner
While this kind of banking may be five to 10 years away, these scenarios are currently being played out at HP's Banking Innovation Centre (BIC) in Milan. Staff at the site are working on applications that will enhance the customer's experience with their bank and to help to win back the trust that many financial institutions have lost thanks to the banking crisis and resultant worldwide recession.         

However, there is one question that looms large: where does print fit in?

Traditionally, banks have communicated to their customers through printed statements, but does the rise of online banking spell the end of transactional printing? Not necessarily. The signs are that the latter is adapting and, far from being finished, both conventional and digital print have an important role to play.

Looking at the recent trends in online banking, this might be hard to believe. Online banking has grown gradually in the last decade with - according to APACS - online banking increasing by 505% between 2000 and 2007, from just under 3.5m users in 2000 to 21m by 2007.

And banks are continuing to encourage customers to move away from paper statements to online because it reduces their costs and is perceived to be more environmentally friendly.

Digital trend
The signs all point to a digital future. That's certainly what HP is anticipating and the BIC reflects this. It has been linking up with some major players in the financial sector to look at the latest trends and demonstrate how they will play out in the future. Banks such as HSBC, Merrill Lynch, Credit Suisse, The Bank of New York Mellon, La Caixa and La Banque Postale have all worked with HP on this initiative.

Jay Pease, HP Exstream enterprise software marketing manager for the EMEA region, explains: "It's a tough economic environment at the moment. Our financial services customers are striving to improve their customers' experience. The business challenge for them is to reduce print and mail production costs, as well as document complexity and, as a result, to streamline."

According to Ruaraigh Thomas, managing director of Data Lateral and Shiftclick, part of the Lateral Group, there are definitely opportunities for a more joined-up, multichannel approach in the financial sector. That said, the size of some of the banks has meant it's taken a while to take-off.

"In the case of the larger institutions, it's like an oil tanker turning around; the size of the banks makes it harder to implement changes," he says. "But it is an area that's being driven by data, understanding customers and giving these customers the opportunity to choose what information to receive and how they receive it."

Greater choice
HP shares the view that the future of the financial sector involves greater choice for customers and it anticipates a more cross-channel strategy from banks. The latest version of Exstream's document template software incorporates SMS, email and transpromo and is not only pitched at print firms, but also the end-client.

Canon has a similar strategy in place. Its head of production marketing for the UK, Trevor Dodsworth, says that it is in the interest of the UK's financial institutions to open up the lines of communication with the customer and tailor their message to the individual.

"In the past, it used to be a bland, but accurate, report on your transactions," he says. "Now, I am finding more offers that are relevant to me. That will only help generate more customer loyalty. The whole drive will utilise the technology and enable the print providers to be more involved in the communication mix."

The Lateral Group has invested heavily in multichannel communications to take advantage of this new banking landscape. Data is king in this market and Thomas says that the aim is to take the customer "on a journey".  "It's about giving value to your customer," he adds. "We show our clients in the financial sector how to get more value through understanding their customers. Technology has helped to make our clients more accessible for customers."

For print firms like Lateral, the technological shift has meant adjusting their strategy and pushing a multi-channel offer to the financial sector with data management key, according to Canon's Dodsworth.

"Print companies are looking to expand their services," he says. "We stress that data is at the heart of a web-to-print system or any personalised communication. The financial sector has a wealth of data - the issue is about making proper use of it."

Thomas points out that it's an evolving process and that banks don't only have an eye on the current customers, but the next generation.

"Teenagers today will be very affluent in 10 years time," explains Thomas. "There is potential through online social networking, print and everything in between. It's scaleable, but some of the older technology is not less important. Paper will not cease to exist."

Far from ringing the death knell for print, Thomas believes that the channel will continue to be chosen by customers. "Print has a place in the heart of it all," he adds.

New wave
While financial institutions have their eyes fixed firmly on a new wave of customers, a large number of it's current crop still want bank statements sent through the post. There is still a generation that prefers printed statements to track their finances and this all represents an opportunity for banks, providing their data is spot on.

"A bank statement is a piece of personalised information and a whole raft of marketing collateral is sent at the same time," says Canon's Dodsworth. "The next stage of the journey is to turn all of that into a truly personalised piece of marketing collateral."

Dodsworth, as you'd expect, believes that this is where digital print comes into its own. With the number of trans­promo documents (statements that incorporate personalised marketing messages) set to rise over the next few years, he says that this plays into the hands of digital print technology.

"It can play a major part and lends itself very well to the personalised approach," he adds. "Print companies are looking to expand their services and are getting more involved in digital."

That may be so, but Data Lateral's Thomas believes that digital print should not be viewed as the be-all and end-all in this brave new world for print.

"For print, it's all about innovation and this does not have to be only short-run or digital work," he says. "You can have targeted and personalised mailings with some of the other print technology out there. Yes, it is about being targeted, but it's not always on a one-to-one basis - you can't always justify communicating to people like that."

Regardless of what form the printed statement and marketing collateral takes, banks are still a long way away from communicating to us through only the internet and mobile phone.

They are desperate to hold on to customers, so it should come as no surprise that their strategy is to offer more open forms of communication. At face value, HP's bank of the future suggests that print will be frozen out, but dig a little deeper and you'll find print isn't left out in the cold.