2012 has come to a close and it’s the start of a new year. On a personal level many of us may have established New Year’s Resolutions. From career goals and fitness goals to saving more money or kicking bad habits – we all want to start the year off right. Executive leaders in financial services and banking are also doing the same thing. As we reflect on the past year, I think we can all agree that 2012 was a year where business leaders, policymakers and consumers alike began to embrace the presence of a technology-driven industry. 
In 2013, the industry will continue to push innovation to businesses faster than businesses can consume. CIOs will continue to face the typical challenges: cost reductions, stakeholder expectations for IT, technical resource requirements and more. Despite these obstacles, senior executives will spend more time focusing on technology-related decisions. To be prepared for this, CIOs will see an expanded role as a business technology leader to drive cross-functional change initiatives, take ownership of information for executive decisions, and demonstrates value in technology investments.
As we focus on 2013, Perficient sat down to analyze the industry trends that will become increasingly prevalent over the course of the next 12 months (or longer). We’ve pulled together 5 technology trends, several of them are intertwined, that you should be paying special attention to as your organization looks to make strategic and transformative business decisions. By focusing on these trends and undertaking transformation projects, organizations stand to gain rapid returns on investment and achieve ongoing operational excellence.
1. You guessed it…Mobile! We’re seeing more and more banks incorporating mobile banking as a regular delivery channel as consumer adoption continues to increase. The mobile space is full of dangerous “noise” that may impact a financial institution’s ability to effectively engage with customers. Banks need to focus on optimizing a consistent mobile platform as this industry trend will extend beyond 2013 as a top strategy for banks. Particularly, banks will need to add another dimension to the mix with providing an interactive banking experience for tablet users. Look for large banks to expand on their mobile strategies to include smart phone capabilities around imaging, payments and location-based services. Adding remote deposit capture, mobile alerts and enhancing mobile app features will be a focus for smaller to mid-sized banks. Check out the Perficient Perspectives Q&A session, “Banking in the Age of Mobile Technology” to hear more about the evolution of this prevalent trend.
2. Enterprise-level management of data. In 2013, we’ll see a continued focus on banks finding ways to leverage data to create a more interactive customer experience across channels. Financial institutions must become more data-centric to be able to transform their business models and support both new and existing products and services. Data governance and master data management will be fundamental to an organization’s success in the years to come. These two technology best practices are intertwined and critical to the success of our next two banking technology trends.
3. Customer experience. This term has taken on a new role in the financial services industry. It has evolved to include various customer touchpoints to deliver an end-to-end multichannel experience. The mobile banking experience is the foundation for a bank’s “digital persona”. Banks must create seamless interactions and find the proper balance between in-branch and digital customer experiences. Usability and trust in mobile banking services are key. Before banks tackle more complex mobile strategies around payments and rewards, they must first master the customer experience basics.
4. Location-based offers and loyalty programs. Well established financial institutions are in the position to capture the attention of consumers using mobile offers. Before jumping on this trend financial institutions need to get smart about their data (see #2). From there, they need to understand consumer wants and needs to identify segmentation strategies for the appropriate audience. Financial services companies must provide clear value propositions for mobile offers and marketing tactics for implementing loyalty programs. Likewise, banks need to be sensitive of security and customer responses by analyzing data in real-time to fine tune programs and create a meaningful customer experience.
5. Service-oriented Architecture to support core transformation. Collaboration demands integration, but when it comes to a bank’s legacy systems it has led to fragmented, inefficient and redundant processes. The financial services industry sees innovation as the path for sustainable growth. But to be able to capitalize on innovation banks have to become more efficient, enable growth and manage risk. Service-oriented Architecture (SOA) allows banks to extend and improve integration among existing applications and drive innovation for payment strategies, big data capabilities, core banking processes, mobile and more.
Are any of these trends on your list of 2013 resolutions? What others are a top priority for your financial institution?
