Key Bank’s Point Fosdick KeyCenter in Gig Harbor features a unique partnership between the bank and an espresso shop. Entering through the doors into the rotunda, visitors can veer right to Starbucks or follow into the teller station or other areas that are tucked around the rotunda. On a recent Friday morning, a couple of customers chatted in the rotunda, while others streamed in and out to get coffee or cash.

   If you can imagine entering a bank with a hip “lobby,” a rotunda that leads you either to the teller station, other bank services…or a Starbucks coffee shop, you are imagining yourself at Gig Harbor’s KeyCenter, a KeyBank branch located on Point Fosdick Drive.
   The unmistakable smell of fresh-roasted coffee hovers over the parking lot. Inside, visitors can jump-start the body with the daily doze of the caffeinated concoction of their choice and visit their friendly banker, all in one trip. Those who don’t want to leave their cars can get a double order of convenience as well: One drive-through line leads to the Starbucks window, the other is a KeyBank teller line.
   At the Poulsbo branch of Washington Mutual, the first experience could be just as strange. While a concierge welcomes and directs guests near the entrance, tellers move about the interior freely. A first-time disoriented visitor may desperately try to locate the tall teller counter…this is a bank, right?
   Instead, the teller invites the person to a “pod,” a station that breaks down psychological barriers and myths about uncomfortable bank experiences all at once. With the nearest pod a few feet away, even the openness feels private — and since a machine, not the teller, dispenses the cash, there is time for conversation. Called “Occasio,” Latin for “favorable opportunity,” this futuristic design at Washington Mutual, with pleasant colors, bright lights and open spaces would certainly compel any person to come back.
   And that’s exactly what these concepts are banking on, pardon the pun.
   When Poulsbo opened its Washington Mutual branch, Regional Manager Jim Gregerson witnessed the reaction first-hand: “eyes wide open, chin dropped.” As the first Occasio outlet in the state of Washington, this unconventional setting in Poulsbo looked more like a shop than a bank. But Occasio is not really about cultural revolution — after all, Washington Mutual considers itself first a retailer first, a bank second.
   “It’s a customer experience. We provide a service,” Gregerson said. “Technology is taking over the whole world. It’s our hope we can make technology more human, not make humans more technological.”
   And so goes the paradox of modern technology. While consumers can now bank without ever stepping a foot into the brick-and-mortar branch — with all that online banking, drive-through windows and ATMs — what consumers really want is…human contact. At least that’s what banks are finding out through research.
   “Each of the new KeyCenter facilities are about creating a new environment for modern banking,” said Clare Hagerty, Vice President of Public Affairs for KeyBank in Washington. “We wanted to provide a warmer, more comfortable environment.”
   As branches compete with the other banking alternatives, their main strength remains in building one-on-one relationships. “With all the technological conveniences for people on the go, we find they still miss that personal interaction,” Hagerty said.
   Even banks that aren’t rethinking their overall look are finding ways to look more inviting. American Marine Bank on Bainbridge Island, which is nearing its remodel completion this month, will feature a fireplace with soft seating, a private “family” room with a comfortable atmosphere, as well as more open space. American Marine too uses a concierge — but it emphasizes its community banking through its customer service rather than trendy design.
   “The biggest difference is face time,” said Executive Vice President Gary Winter. “We are the type of bank that gives personal attention.” The bank will test its small-town, community-banking concept in a big city, with the opening of a Seattle office at the end of April.
   Personal attention becomes increasingly important as banks expand their product offerings. Much has changed since the days when a bank meant the equivalent of a simple checking account, and the overabundance of financial choices could certainly use a little orientation, whether in the form of KeyCenter’s rotunda or Washington Mutual’s computer stations that tucked into the Occasio’s design with the goal of giving customers easy access to information at the touch of a screen. And just because bankers understand that not all lifestyles are created equal, some Occasio centers even feature play areas — so that overwhelmed moms can entertain their children.
   “We were looking to do something different. Banking had not changed in years but consumers have,” Gregerson said.
   Along with the consumers’ changing needs, banks are rethinking strategies. Dedicating a wing of the bank to a coffee shop — even a popular one like Starbucks — may have been considered outrageous some years ago. But this is the Northwest, inarguably the espresso capital of America, where having the nearest coffee stand half-mile away is too far. So the Point Fosdick KeyBank branch, reborn from the ashes of a fire that destroyed its old building, demonstrated that thinking out the box is still the best way to get a competitive edge.
   Hagerty said that even at the coffee-less KeyCenter locations — the ones that feature the rotunda with a stock ticker — foot traffic proves that the concept works. At Washington Mutual, Occasio branches usually get higher scores of customer satisfaction, said spokeswoman Olivia Riley.
   So it seems the convergence of bank and retail shop is undoing what the Internet era has introduced, long-distance banking. Instead, as banks use their affable smiles to disprove the sterile image financial institutions may get with the territory, customers are learning that there is more to those buildings than checking accounts, and a whole array of services is only a friendly banker away.