25.06.2020 Articles

25/6/2020 | By Nikos Karelos | Banking Director at Profile Software

The global economy has greatly reshaped since last March, urging both consumers and businesses to adjust their behaviour, processes and operations to a new reality. McKinsey & Company sets a five-stage call-to-action applicable across industries emerging from the COVID-19 battle: Resolve, Resilience, Return, Reimagine, and Reform. Specifically for the banking sector, if these emerging shifts in behaviour become banking’s post COVID-19 “next normal,” retail banking distribution will experience up to three years of digital preference acceleration within 2020.

Investment in banking tech

According to the World Retail Banking Report 2020 by Capgemini and Efma, Banks need to overcome legacy barriers by transforming the core banking system to adopt a progressive approach, modernising their systems to achieve time-sensitive goals with minimal risk and measurable outcome.

What do you think will position success in this new environment? Do the following constitute top-of-mind priorities?

  • identifying new areas of potential
  • transforming digital sales journeys
  • launching new products
  • offering advisory and security focused services
  • preparing partnerships and/or strategic M&A with other banks or fintechs
  • increasing speed in response.

Technology spending, therefore, is likely to be considered the best investment in such times to prepare for the aftermath. Cost control measures need to be thought carefully, PwC also advises, following the lockdown. Many banks, particularly in the top tier segment, are undertaking large-scale digital transformation programs, often involving significant investments, measured in billions of dollars, in overall spending for new technology.

Digital Banking in the spotlight

Digital banking services are therefore in the spotlight of investment and development to achieve business continuity and customer satisfaction with a range of new features covering enhanced onboarding capability, instant payments, contactless operations and most urgently low-touch and risk-free lending.

KPMG notes that Banks are faced with a difficult balancing act between making credit available quickly, while still performing all necessary checks. The new normal requires a redesign of the lending process to reduce credit origination time, to enable access to consultation beyond working hours, to increase online support, to offer scalable cloud hosted solutions as well as a combination of automation and human intervention for greater levels of efficiency and engagement. This revised reality proves that operating efficiently using manual processes will no longer be possible. Machine learning, customer analytics and automated eligibility checks will be necessary in the Banks’ post-Covid-19 strategy, to provide insights on the customer’s profile and enable rapid origination and processing, in compliance with data protection policies.

Are you armed with the tools needed to ensure business continuity and customer satisfaction in this challenging marketplace? Are you able to minimise implicated risks at the speed required?

Visit our Banking solutions and read more on how Profile’s Cloud and SaaS enabled platforms and agile implementation approach, can safeguard your business in the new normal, accelerating migration to digital channels and ensuring a consistent service experience across all banking operations, including the complete loan management lifecycle, onboarding and payments.