Digital Transformation in Banking: It is time for bold moves

Digital Transformation in Banking: It is time for bold moves

Bradley and I attended the Voice Summit 2019 last week in Newark, New Jersey, where I participated on a panel discussion about the promise of voice for older generations. I talked about how the intuitive nature of voice – combined with the power of artificial intelligence (AI) – could be a tool to help people simplify complex financial tasks. Someone from the audience asked: “Banks have had this data for a very long time but did not do anything about it. They have not had to change throughout the years – why is now any different?”

“Why not?” I wanted to ask – but I hesitated.

Banks have enjoyed both significant growth and profitability since the Great Recession. According to consultancy firm BCG, global bank revenues will climb to an estimated US $5.4 trillion by 2022. Incumbent banks, compared with nonbank/fintech challengers, have not only held onto their position in most markets, they have retained and grown their customer bases through a global population that is still inclined to trust banks and remain relatively loyal despite more financial options.

But this is exactly the right time to change – when we feel complacent. It is the right time to change – because the world around us has changed rapidly. It is the right time to change – when we have emerging but powerful technologies such as big data and artificial intelligence at our disposal, to allow us to gain valuable insights into our customer’s lifestyles, obligations, preferences, creditworthiness, and personal financial needs. The challenge is not so much the lack of data, but the abundance of it, and how we can make use of it more efficiently

Look no further than Jack Ma’s four-year-old MYbank, that has lent 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion) to nearly 16 million small companies. The transactions are conducted on the smartphone without human bankers, with the process lasting less than three minutes from start to finish. Other players such as Tencent, Ping An, and Construction Bank all have similar offerings.

It will be naïve then, to think that we would not experience similar disruption by global technology giants, such as Amazon and Facebook – especially when success in the digital era is all about data, something that Amazon is not shy of, with over 101 million Prime customers in the U.S. The introduction of iPhone in 2007, followed by the proliferation of smartphones, delivered a game changing mobile experience. that has alternated our behavioral DNA.

No longer are we confined by location and time of day, consumers can now demand what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. If today’s banks are serious about remaining relevant, they must accelerate their digital transformation efforts and evolve into the bank of the future. They must reimagine the end-to-end customer journeys and design with the customers in mind to make the experience more delightful.

They must leverage big data and data analytics to create more personalized and relevant offers, that allow financial institutions anticipate the needs of their customers before they arise, enabling them to become a personal CFO. Each consumer needs this amount of attention, is demanding this type of attention, and deserves this amount of personal attention.

To accomplish the above, banks need to create an ecosystem of partnerships to improve their core offerings – as no one can do everything well on their own. They need to modernize the infrastructure and adopt changes in architecture in order to speed up the product delivery cycle. Case in point, in order to allow a 7×24 digital banking experience, 56 percent of Tencent’s employees are IT staff. Compare that to your financial institution. This is why your partnership strategy is paramount.

Instead of incremental changes, it is time for bolder moves. It is time to turn ideas into action. It is time to truly serve the diverse needs of our communities and build inclusive design to benefit everyone’s daily lives. If our industry doesn’t feel this urgency and act, you can be rest assured the growing presence of global technology platforms will.

Listen in to our conversation with Banesh Prabhu on our new episode of Red Envelope on iTunes and Spotify, as we chat about digital transformation in banking, through the eyes of a seasoned executive turned investor.

More information about Irish Tech News and the Business Showcase

FYI the ROI for you is => We now get over 1.5 million monthly views, and up to 900k monthly unique visitors, from over 160 countries. We have over 860,000 relevant followers on Twitter on our various accounts & were recently described as Ireland’s leading online tech news site and Ireland’s answer to TechCrunch, so we can offer you a good audience!

Since introducing desktop notifications a short time ago, which notify readers directly in their browser of new articles being published, over 16000 people have now signed up to receive them ensuring they are instantly kept up to date on all our latest content. Desktop notifications offer a unique method of serving content directly to verified readers and bypass the issue of content getting lost in people’s crowded news feeds.

Drop us a line if you want to be featured, guest post, suggest a possible interview, or just let us know what you would like to see more of in our future articles. We’re always open to new and interesting suggestions for informative and different articles. Contact us, by email, twitter or whatever social media works for you.

Home

If you would like to have your company featured in the Irish Tech News Business Showcase, get in contact with us at [email protected] or on Twitter: @SimonCocking