A few weeks ago I found myself at the bank after my debit card was the unfortunate victim of a data breach. After signing in at the teller, I was directed to a personal banking employee who then walked me through the process of signing up for a new card. Unlike in years past where I was instructed to fill out a form, they asked me if I had the bank’s mobile application. I remarked that I did and in a few seconds I was able to order a new credit card right on the spot and track its shipping status.
Such capabilities in finance are becoming more commonplace in today’s world as institutions look to innovate and stay engaged with their customers. The cloud provides not only a cost-effective way to innovate, but also adds an additional channel for communications and notifications. Even as my card was being compromised, my bank even sent me immediate text messages to let me know of the breaches and I could reject fraudulent purchases right from my phone.
Integrated communications aren’t just the only area where cloud and finance merge. With research firm Gartner predicting that a no-cloud policy will be as common as a no-internet policy in 2020, we take a look at several other areas that will see change.
- Trend #1: Storage
Humanity as a whole makes a lot of transactions every single day which are then sent out on paper to customers everywhere. Thankfully, more financial institutions are making online-only documents available for viewing. As more customers more towards this path, we expect institutions to invest in storage, which is getting more inexpensive by the moment. - Trend #2: Financial Collaboration
The market is a complex one, with financial professionals doing their best to stay with the trends and ensure their customers maximize their investments. As cloud becomes more secure, expect more consultation to happen over the web through video and voice, reducing the need for physical face-to-face visits. - Trend #3: Hybrid Cloud
Even as more organizations migrate to the cloud, there are legacy technologies that must still remain local. According to RightScale’s State of the Cloud Survey in 2016, 71% of organizations now adopt the hybrid cloud, which is a combination of private and public cloud solutions. Additionally, we also expect many organizations to adopt Integration Platform as a Service (iPaas), which seamlessly connects on-premise cloud platforms with public cloud solutions at a low cost. - Trend #4: ChatOps
In late 2016, we saw the arrival of chat bots, which provide automatic messaging capabilities for customer service. Nicknamed ChatOps, these bots offer a replacement for customer service representatives for simple questions like accessing account information or navigating a website. Developed through platforms like IBM Bluemix, chat bots can offer a wide range of benefits including artificial intelligence. We would expect this to have wide-ranging impacts on financial institutions, which are largely driven by customer communications.
Learn More
Are you a financial institution looking to integrate cloud and DevOps into your customer engagement? Speak with Perficient today by emailing us at sales@perficient.com to start a conversation around our expertise and download our latest guide on 2017 Financial Services Trends to understand other technology considerations impacting finance.
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