Australia is famous for its abundance of animals found nowhere else in the world, including the kangaroo, koala, platypus, emu and wombat.

During the last stop on our around-the-world tour we discovered that it also is home to some unique concepts in branch banking.

In Sydney, for example, wherever we went, we saw brightly colored VW Beetles sporting the logo of a major bank. The vehicles were driven by mobile sales specialists who visit consumers in their homes to pitch mortgages, car loans and other personal secured loans. Several banks did this, each featuring a distinctive color scheme on its traveling billboard. It's their way of competing against direct marketers of financial services that are making inroads in the Australian market.

Another novel approach we observed is the "Bank@Post" program. More than 70 financial institutions have collaborated with Australia Post, the national postal system, to provide their customers with transaction services. Bank clients can conduct personal or business financial transactions, including deposits and withdrawals, account balance inquiries and credit card payments, at all 800 system-operated facilities.

Bank@Post also is available at Australia Post's 3,000-plus agent locations across the country in retail outlets such as pharmacies, dry cleaners, news agents and even pubs. Many of these agents serve small towns or rural areas that lack other banking options.

While five major banks dominate the Australian banking scene, competing branches cheek-by-jowl in the coastal cities, the story is very different in the vast reaches of the sparsely populated interior. Branch rationalization and consolidation over the years have left many small towns with no banking facilities.

In Melbourne we heard about one Australian bank's "community bank" model that has focused on providing branch access in underserved communities. The bank works with communities seeking local banking services to establish a branch operation, overseen by a board of directors with members from the community. The bank allows the franchisee to use its name and identity system, and provides the back office infrastructure and establishes appropriate credit standards. In turn, the community runs the front office, including staffing, sales and marketing. Profits are divided equally by the parties, and the franchisee typically reinvests its share in projects that benefit the entire community.

A more traditional approach to franchising is used by another major bank to extend its branch network into new markets. Rather than incur the expense of building a branch from scratch, the bank works with franchisees who invest their own capital to establish and operate a branch. The bank charges a franchise fee for the use of its brand and back-office support, and the franchisee retains any profits generated by the branch.

These franchising arrangements appear to be working well for the Australian banks, but regulatory constraints may limit the usefulness of this concept in the U.S.

— Chris Gill