Bank creates community innovation cafés

Capital One Cafes offer banking experiences and educational events alongside fresh coffee and co-working spaces, encouraging community-based innovation.

Many banking innovations we’ve seen recently have focused on making services available more often and at greater convenience to users, such as video teller machines or a social media chatbot that enables all bills to be paid through a single app, but one bank is shifting its focus to a community-based approach.

Capital One Cafes has launched several outlets across the US that combine aspects of banking with the ‘third space’ work/relax environment that coffee shops offer. As well as sitting down with Capital One ‘ambassadors’ for traditional banking services, users can also just hang out and enjoy the free wifi and Peet’s Coffee on offer. With users encouraged to hold meetings in the cafes, using them as co-working spaces, Capital One hope that the sites can become hubs for community innovation, where diverse businesses can share ideas while also having access to digital banking expertise through public events and workshops. With sites already in several US states, more Capital One Cafes are due to open soon.

How else can traditional banking services adapt to offer consumers deeper, more wide-ranging experiences?