Beyond free checking: new strategies for differentiating your bank.

• Position: Marketing News

How do you differentiate your free-checking product in a market where every competitor also has free checking? One option might be to offer a free credit report monitoring service to go with the checking product, according to a new report from Synergistics Research Corp., Atlanta.

In a national telephone survey conducted earlier this year with 1,000 consumers age 18 or older, researchers tested reactions to a number of innovative and value-added tactics for checking accounts, including affinity programs, reward programs and fraud protection services. The potential for cross-selling was also measured.

The study showed that the majority of respondents would be either "likely" or "very likely" to open a checking package in order to receive free credit reporting...