Over the past ten years, the banking industry has undergone an extraordinary transformation, including IT Architecture from significant legal changes to the development of various internet banks that have transformed the competitive landscape for traditional high-street businesses.
Monzo already has over 5 million active customers, Starling recorded 600 percent revenue growth for its 2021 year-end, and Revolut was valued at £24 billion – more than NatWest — during its funding round in summer 2021. These statistics help put the expansion of challenger banks into perspective. Customers’ experiences are at the center of the value propositions of digital competitors, who are putting pressure on traditional brick-and-mortar banks.
This customer experience is increasingly being considered significantly when making decisions. In fact, according to a recent study by MagiClick, 80% of adults say the caliber of their online banking experience influences their choice of financial institution. This has a significant impact on retail banks’ customer-attraction strategies. It means that they must make the customer experience a top investment objective in their strategies for digital transformation.
The market shares of the more established banks are really at risk, thus it is clear that greater digital transformation is needed to support innovation. Many of the departments, services, and products that banks offer—from savings accounts to mortgages and current accounts—are supported by different customer databases and systems, creating data silos and diverse perspectives on the same customer. The customer experience may suffer as a result in some ways.
In addition, a lot of traditional banks have technical debt and still depend on mainframes, which were developed in the 1960s, to process transactions, making cloud migration a difficult and time-consuming task. The technologies that banks use to help their staff perform their jobs generally reflect this aging infrastructure, and the difficulty of changing also delays important changes in the back office.
Time is very important for traditional banks to preserve market relevance, however, given the actions of their competitors and the changing priorities of their customers. Competitors are taking note of this and accelerating efforts like cloud deployments to make their IT architecture as open and simple as possible, allowing them to launch new goods and services much more quickly.
Customers demand a consumer-like banking experience, including the ability to make account changes while securely authenticated using a bank’s app, without having to speak to a live person, and having inquiries managed via DMs on social media. They expect speed and simplicity, as well as jargon-free websites and apps that are simple to use.
Banks have had to reevaluate their entire technology architecture to ensure that they can securely connect with third-party organizations for the benefit of their customers and protect authentication procedures as a result of changing regulations like PSD2 and the resulting Open Banking requirements. To set themselves apart from their competitors, banks must be able to establish new relationships fast, whether it be through partnerships with retailers or other financial services companies like Klarna or other similar providers.
Banks must be able to draw creative thinkers and leaders if they are to provide such a seamless user experience. For many, this may entail reconsidering how teams complete tasks and embracing strategies like hybrid working to bring in new hires from different age groups and backgrounds.
Banks may access a larger talent pool outside of the areas in which they have a physical presence by reinventing ways of working to enable workers to work most productively and effectively, whether they are at home, in the office, or working remotely. To do this, they must change the way they see security, focusing on strategies like zero trust security to ensure that staff always follow a minimum set of security processes, regardless of the situation.
Traditional banks can compete with their neobank rivals by offering a transformed user experience while consumers are secure in the knowledge of their industrial heritage and credibility thanks to the cloud architecture supporting their workspaces. The high street brands may endure, but a new era of flexible and seamless services built on the cloud is about to dawn. Long-term benefits will accrue to those who embrace it.
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