The financial services industry is in the middle of rampant disruption and it’s only the beginning! The intersection of technology and customer behavior will only continue to drive further change in the industry. To keep pace with this new fast-paced banking environment, traditional banks and financial services companies need to increase business agility, make technology investments and reach customers in new ways to be competitive. As an organization, you want to be the driving force behind change in the industry, setting new standards, and playing a pivotal role in the evolution of banking in the future. Below we’ve identified four key areas where financial services companies should continue to focus modernization efforts in order to survive against new players disrupting the banking and payments system. 
Customer Engagement
Power struggles in the age of digital have forced banks to up their game. New opportunities exist for increasing the value delivered to customers, enriching product offerings and cross-sell opportunities, strengthening relationships and building loyalty, and most importantly, improving market share. All can be achieved through a new customer engagement model. Key enablers of this model include, customer and external data sources, an enterprise data strategy for 360-degree analytics, digital engagement platforms, and seamless distribution across all channels. A rise in non-banks and new players disrupting banking is challenging traditional financial institutions to explore new services using APIs and cloud services to empower not only how they’ll be provided, but what services are offered.
Client Onboarding
Client onboarding is one of the most critical functions for banks, capital markets, asset and wealth management firms. In today’s environment, the account opening and onboarding process must integrate offline and online channels making this process even more challenging than it was before. Organizations continue to invest millions in onboarding to reduce risk and increase process efficiency, but also see benefits to improve the customer experience and reduce attrition. From the digital channels in which you choose to onboard your customers and a scalable IT platform to the marketing campaigns targeting new customers, all of these things will be critical to the success of your account opening and client onboarding processes.
Finance Transformation
As a bank, your success depends on how well you’re run. The ability to communicate efficiency, manage controls and scale your business are key drivers for finance transformation projects. You may be dealing with information quality and consistency concerns, facing timely reconciliation issues, need internal controls and corporate governance, or face new challenges with legal and regulatory reporting. A global accounting policy implementation is critical to achieving an enhanced finance control environment and accelerate the financial close for banks and other financial firms.
Compliance and Risk
We’re at a turning point for risk, finance and compliance functions in the banking sector. Facing the dual pressure of regulatory reform and economic change, organizations are looking to transform these “necessary” functions into a competitive advantage. How can financial services providers do that? Data is the lifeblood of their business. The ability to work with consistent, traceable data that can be shared easily across functions is key to success. To achieve this, a flexible platform and technology infrastructure must be in place to respond to key compliance activities and scale with the business. Compliance is the new “normal”. By establishing a compliance roadmap, standardizing policies and procedures, and developing the necessary risk architectures and data models, financial institutions can build agility – and business value – into their processes and capabilities.
