Banks basically don't need to innovate on their hours. If all banks are open similar hours, none of them feel the need to impact their costs by opening longer knowing that it will just force their competitors to do the same and level the playing field again, with everyone (banks not customers) losing out.
Barbers, all the ones I've known in a few UK cities have always had at least a couple of evenings they would open for, if not all evenings (though I generally go during the day anyway). Presumably because there's so many more than there are major banks, and because it's a key decision making factor for consumers - people are more likely to think "I'll get my hair cut at X instead of Z because it's open when I want a haircut" than "I'll bank with X instead of Z because some day I may prefer the opening hours". Not sure if my different experience is based on location or the fact that I generally go to not-cheap places which wouldn't use the term "barbers" to promote themselves.
The commercial banking industry has been watching TD Bank for the past few years.
Banks compete in 2 main areas: interest rates and services.
TD Bank has a far better service offering than Citibank, Chase, etc.
TD Bank offers ATM fee reimbursement anywhere in the world, much longer branch hours, free coin counting, nicer employees, etc.
And yet TD Bank is not crushing the competition.
TD Bank's better service offering is not enough of a competitive advantage to offset the stickiness of commercial banking.
A person's main checking account is a pain to transfer for most people. To change your checking account you need to:
1) Wait days for the new account to be approved and initial transfer to clear
2) Wait to receive new checks
3) Reset up your recurring bill payments
The reason that most banks don't innovate is that customers move to better banks very slowly.
Barbers, all the ones I've known in a few UK cities have always had at least a couple of evenings they would open for, if not all evenings (though I generally go during the day anyway). Presumably because there's so many more than there are major banks, and because it's a key decision making factor for consumers - people are more likely to think "I'll get my hair cut at X instead of Z because it's open when I want a haircut" than "I'll bank with X instead of Z because some day I may prefer the opening hours". Not sure if my different experience is based on location or the fact that I generally go to not-cheap places which wouldn't use the term "barbers" to promote themselves.