A survey of banking clients in Canada and six other developed countries found that although consumers still value their banks for providing core services, their needs for a variety of other value-added banking services — including wealth building, personalization, cash management, identity and data protection, and rewards programs — aren’t being met.

“Today, consumers view their bank as a trusted place to store, move and protect their money — the bedrock business of banking,” according to Montreal-based CGI Group Inc.’s report on the survey, entitled Financial Consumer Demands for Tomorrow’s Digital Bank, released on Tuesday. “However, consumers are not receiving the value-add services they want, and so this bedrock is threatened with erosion, especially as highly convenient non-bank alternatives for managing their financial needs emerge.”

The survey of 1,400 bank consumers in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, France, Germany and Sweden also found that that online banking is the preferred service channel for consumers, regardless of age, income level, or country.

Changing consumer expectations in terms of online banking services is putting pressure on banks to accelerate the growth of their own digital banking capabilities and services, the report suggests. Failure to deliver quality online service could see banks lose business to new, innovative financial service firms.

“Financial consumers want personalized value-add services to protect their identity and finances, reward them for their business, and help them to build wealth and manage their cash,” the report points out. “And they are willing to switch to non-bank alternatives now available in the market to access these services, as well as pay fees for them.”

For traditional banks to thrive, the report suggests they should be looking for ways to close the gap between the quality of service currently provided and customer desires in some of these key areas:

Protection: One in four consumers would pay a premium for more identity and data protection, which they identified as their top desired service. Consumers are more aware of increasing possibility of digital fraud.

Wealth building: One in three consumers would pay a premium for wealth-building services. These include advice on investments, taxes and wealth transfer, as well as access to independent advisors and loans for investing in wealth-building schemes.

Personalization: Only 10% of respondents believe it is not important to be known by their bank and almost 19% are willing to pay for their bank to know them better.

Cash management: Real-time facilitation of cash, liquidity and management of cash flows are expected by 65% of consumers across all countries, ages, incomes and bank types, together with real-time balances

Rewards: Of the bank consumers surveyed, 70% said rewards are important, with only 7% saying they are unimportant.

Plano, Tex.-based Research Now, a digital data collection firm, conducted the survey for CGI’s Financial Consumer Demands for Tomorrow’s Digital Bank report.