A recent Fiserv survey of 2,000 UK adults indicates that by next year, £3.4 billion and £9.4 billion will be transferred weekly via mobile and online banking platforms respectively with an aggregate of £12.8 billion per week. It added that UK mobile banking customers will double resulting in 32.6 million users by next year. “Capabilities like mobile alerts (for instance, JETHRO’s JDelivery), instant payments and location-based services, coupled with data analytics used with customers’ permission, offer a significant advantage for banks if used effectively”, Fiserv reported.  These present opportunities for banks to increase their customer base by offering more competitive products on mobile platforms since many customers’ increasingly use such platforms.

Similarly, digital only banks have been slogging to obtain significant customer share since their arrival on mainstream banking. A recent FIS’s survey of 1,749 customers in US indicated that 63% customers are extremely satisfied with digital only banks compared to an average of 34% customers that are satisfied with nondigital only banks.  Also, the report found that 73% of banking transactions were performed via mobile and online platforms due to convenience and more efficient customer experience. Traditional Banks would need to pay more attention to their digital banking platforms by investing more on tools that can ensure robust omnichannel experience.

Customised solutions, enhanced multi-channel experience and branch transformation are top expectations of 800 customers surveyed by BAI. Also, financial management and budgeting software as well as mobile banking solutions (like JETHRO’s jMB), chatbots and alert notification systems (like JETHRO’s jDelivery), are customisable solutions that can be leveraged to transform your customers experience.

Furthermore, embracing innovation partnerships will transform the operational efficiency of your financial institution. For instance, major European Banks such as Banque Internationale à Luxembourg, BBVA, Deutsche Bank, Natixis, Santander, Sberbank and UniCredit have partnered with Swift to ensure fast, secure and seamless cross-border real-time payment services across the globe. The Swift gpi enable banks to effect payments within 30 minutes as well as transparency of payment statuses and fees. Swift had earlier completed same pilot programme with major banks in Australia, China, Singapore and Thailand.

ATM user experience transformation is vital since it is a self-service interface with customers who use it weekly. Mercator Advisory Group report confirms that customers prefer using ATMs due to convenience and surcharge-free access that it affords. As technology advances, there is need to transform the ATM user experience. This will ensure better customer experience and enable loyalty. Considerations include:
  • Scaling customer preferences to ATM features.
  • Proactively securing your ATMs against Fraud
  • Remove vulnerability by ensuring ATM software is up to date: Microsoft has stated that it will no longer support window 7 from January 14, 2020 resulting in unavailability of security updates. Therefore, there is need to upgrade the operating systems to Windows 10.
Some strategies for accelerating digital transformation in your financial Institutions include: having a digitization vision, creating an organizational culture that considers digital as top priority, establishing a multi-functional client centred organisation paradigm, re-innovating on products, fostering employees’ capacity improvement, fostering synergy among teams, securing customers’ confidence with proactive cyber-security measures, replacing legacy systems with new ones to remain competitive, adopt data analytics and visualization as well as ensuring a consistent digital strategy assessment that will result in optimum performance and returns on investment.
It is important to ensure continuous investment in the transformation of your bank’s operations, rather than using legacy systems. In the long run, benefits will out way cost and the ROI will result in process automation, revenue generating scheme and cost savings. Other benefits reported by bobguide include: multi-channel customer interface, regulatory compliance, cross-selling / up-sell opportunities, competitive market position, and customer experience transformation. Hence, banks that play catch-up with technology will be at a disadvantage.