Insight into how omnichannel experiences help banks reach younger audiences
For three days in New Orleans, attendees to the Digital Banking Summit 2016 sat in on sessions and conversations that covered the most important trends and concerns of digital banking today, from mobile security to the increasing importance of customer experience across every channel. If you missed it, here are our five main takeaways from the conference:
1. Branches Aren’t Dead, but Digital Strategy Needs to Be Omnichannel
Many sessions highlighted the drive for digital transformation. Every topic during the conference—partnerships, internal processes, customer experience, technology, security—was discussed in the context of the digital transformation strategies that banks are pursuing. Michelle Moore, Head of Digital Banking at Bank of America, shared how important it was to apply bank digital transformation across every channel, including in-branch, ATMs, web and mobile apps. Attendees were relieved to hear that branches are not going to die anytime soon, but they still need to be given a place within the overall digital strategy.
2. Become a Trusted Advisor for Millennials
Banks have an opportunity to capture the attention of millennials by providing better money management tools. Several speakers presented research that showed millennials are looking for more innovative tools around saving, the ability to manage their money via text or chat, more comprehensive accounts via dashboards, and other digital banking services that give them a more immediate relationship to their money. By using all of the information they have on customers, banks can provide incredibly personalized experiences by recognizing significant life events (like preparing to buy their first house) and offering relevant financial advice. This position as a trusted personal advisor is a unique role that banks can fill for digital natives, if they move quickly to roll out new services.
3. FinTechs are Open to Collaboration
Several industry leaders shared about their partnerships with FinTech. Based on those who spoke, FinTechs are open to partnerships and are looking for opportunities to collaborate with banks. However, during Moven and TD Bank’s session, we learned that FinTech leaders expect potential partners to be agile and ready for a fast pace of innovation, if they’re to compete in today’s online market. Banks that are interested in partnering with FinTech should keep this in mind during their digital transformation processes, and make sure that they’re pursuing technology solutions that facilitate workflow, data sharing and mobile app building with systems that are flexible and integrate easily with third-party products.
4. The Responsibility of Security Falls on Banks
Understandably, there are a lot of concerns around establishing better security for financial services, especially on mobile devices, which tend to be less secure because users don’t install security software. On Tuesday, Ross Hogan, Global Head of the Fraud Prevention Division at Kaspersky Lab, shared six aspects of mobile banking security, focusing particularly on how to identify users. Hogan warned that login/password combinations are already at risk because users tend to reuse them, and soon hackers will have figured out a way to spoof fingerprint identification as well. He offered behavioral biometrics as a solution: tracking the way a user holds their phone, how hard they press on the screen, which direction they swipe, etc. and using this to identify people. Regardless of the method, banks are searching for better ways to confirm digital identity that still provide a painless user experience for their customers.
5. The Need to Figure Out Real Time Data
A final point of interest is the challenge of providing real time data to customers, especially in the area of digital banking transactions. In today’s environment of instant access to information, it’s hard for people to understand why they would need to wait days to see their transactions posted to their bank accounts. There are many hurdles for banks to face in getting their legacy systems to allow for real time data, but the demand for this digital banking service is clear.
Looking Forward for Financial Services
Financial services is an exciting place to work right now. Many companies have crossed some of the hurdles related to streamlining their technology, placing them about halfway through their digital transformation journeys. Now, the challenge is to identify the right innovative strategies to pursue, and to go after them quickly in order to gain early advantages in the changing landscape. Having the right technology is a key piece of the puzzle, and making the right choices now will create a better foundation for future digital banking innovation.