Consumer multi-banking and bank cross-selling of financial services

This paper investigates whether the primary current account that consumers typically use for their everyday shopping and banking transactions remains an effective cross-selling channel for banks amid digitalisation, regulatory reform and increased competition. Using a unique 2024 consumer survey of 2,326 Dutch consumers, we find no evidence of a broad structural decline in banks’ overall cross-selling opportunities in the Netherlands. The primary current account continues to “anchor†bank-customer relationships. However, this anchoring role varies by product category and consumer segment. Cross-selling has weakened for savings and investment products, while remaining relatively stable for mortgages. Furthermore, digitalisation is not only associated with more multi-banking but also supports financial product acquisition at the consumers’ main bank, suggesting that it does not uniformly erode incumbent banks’ cross-selling capacity. Consumer preferences are central: perceived benefits of single-banking strengthen cross-selling and reduce multi banking, whereas perceived transparency of financial conditions has a modest effect.