In 2021, banking technology that was once at the forefront and considered exploratory is quickly proving its mettle, becoming adopted by a wider audience, proving profitable for financial institutions, and improving the overall customer experience.
Consider the following when thinking about your overall digital suite, and how you can effectively incorporate the following four features into your existing platform.
Mobile-First Solutions
Increasingly, customers want the ability to conduct activities on-demand, on their own time. The most fundamental example of time-saving, customer-controlled online banking is the mobile deposit, which has become near-universal in recent history.
Now, customers want this same format applied to other aspects of their banking – loan approvals and account openings have largely become possible through do-it-yourself online processes, often on mobile, or otherwise on your financial institution’s website. Continue to work on these solutions in order to continue to please customers and give them the power to interact with your organization autonomously.
Open APIs
With so many technology trends simultaneously happening in the financial world, your organization needs a way to outsource the exploration and development of that technology. Simply put, utilizing an open API, an interface that is standardized to allow FinTech organizations to utilize your data in unique ways, has become the best way to “open yourself up” to technological innovation.
By creating the underlying framework for your data to be accessible (yet secure) and easily manipulated, third-party players can develop unique value propositions that open up revenue opportunities for them while better serving your customers. These win-win opportunities will continue to influence technological innovation and adoption.
Sophisticated AI
Customer service has seen an evolution: First, humans conducted all customer service requests, generally to a satisfactory degree. Then, AI chatbots offered a way to reduce expenditure, but also resulted in a lot of dissatisfaction and general ineffectiveness. Now, chatbots have become more sophisticated in the way they can interact with customers, offering an improved experience and a seamless transition to an actual human if the task at hand isn’t panning out. Make sure your organization is utilizing this newest, most sophisticated iteration of AI to improve the customer experience.
Customer-Centric Offers
Rather than focusing on the technology itself, we’re seeing financial institutions utilize tech learnings to create a better overall customer experience. Recently, Ally Bank announced it will be ending overdraft fees, marking a major change from a practice that has become a mainstay of banking revenue and operations.
Moves such as these challenge the status quo, and making financial institutions consider what else is possible and how the customer experience can be improved. Customer-centricity has other ways of manifesting through technology as well, such as customized offers in the form of ads or offers based on your customers’ unique financial records. Consider ways you can utilize the information available to you to improve the customer experience through technology.
