Banks, it’s time to bet big on digital!

In recent years, the need for business to move from physical to digital has been a forefront priority. Innovations conveyed by tech companies and fintechs drove digital interactions to gradually become the default communication method for many people, especially among the digital only younger generations.

What’s more, face-to-face cooperation increased in complexity throughout the pandemic, and the shake-up imposed all banking clients to intensively use digital channels, therefore accelerating the urgency for banks to sharpen the weapons to compete in a digital first environment, against new tech entrants and competitors.

As a result, a gap has emerged in the banking industry, between those banks having a clearly articulated digital transformation strategy together with delivering superior experiences to clients and those being far from making significant progress execution on such strategy, with most banks admitting they must do more to keep up with digital-first challenges, and to appeal to a digital-native client framework, leveraging on greater investment in intelligent tech and cloud technology and a more customer-centric view.

Filling the Experience Gap to Leverage on Customer Centricity

According to McKinsey research, 70% of customers have already tired different brands since the pandemic started, while 60% expect to adopt new brands into their post pandemic lives.

It is interesting to consider to what extent Covid-19 essentially increased customers’ awareness towards providers that are both digital and empathic to their needs for simplicity – in times of exceptional difficulty – and transparency – in times of extreme uncertainty.

The post-covid banking test bench will therefore no longer be service-driven and sales-oriented and customer centricity is fluctuating towards the core of key decisions. Indeed, if it’s true that supporting clients in managing their financial life is still the ultimate goal, today more than ever before banks need to be part of their journey and progressively shape tools conforming to their preferences and expectations.

In practice, this calls for abandoning standardisation and embracing personalised banking experiences, as the number of advanced technological solutions of data processing and personalisation through AI are becoming more and more accessible.

Introducing the Banking Leader

Technology alone is not enough. To chart the path to transformation and drive growth banks are required to know the competitive landscape, transform people and culture – hand in hand with technology investments and agility to innovate at speed and scale.

We reckon the upcoming banking leader will have five fundamentals:

To rephrase it, the banking leading will implement and develop both systems & technology and operational capabilities to manage customer behavioural data, to segment customers and deliver unique end-to-end personalised experiences and journeys built on tailored interactions.