Banking
Why information is now the most valuable currency in banking
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he effects of COVID-19 had a significant impact on many areas of our lives, and the retail banking sector is no exception. During lockdown, banks throughout the UK were forced to close their branches, requiring their customers to access and manage their accounts online. At the height of the pandemic in early 2020, 73 percent of UK consumers were using digital banking channels at least weekly, while the number using mobile banking reached 57 percent – a rise of five percentage points on the previous six months. The shift to digital banking has, of course, meant a change in the ways banks interact with their customers. Gone are the traditional relationships and faceto-face ways of doing business. But, while it may have been challenging at first for financial service institutions and their customers, the wealth of customer data generated through this new way of banking represented a new opportunity for banks to deliver a better – albeit different – customer experience. Understanding and insight Delivering an excellent digital customer experience is vital for banks today. As with any online service provider, their experience of buying products and service online mean that if a customer isn’t happy with the experience they receive, they’ll simply look elsewhere. It’s largely why banks with a customer-centric culture have been found to be 60 percent more
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profitable than those without. Despite this, though, many are still not delivering the experience their customers expect. Only by truly understanding its customers can a bank hope to meet their expectations. Doing so requires achieving a 360-degree view of those customers, across the entire organization, and at each stage of their journey. Taking such an holistic, end-to-end approach will provide banks with visibility into their customers’ behaviour, needs, and preferences, which will allow them to offer personalised products and services. Fortunately, the move to digital banking means banks are now able to access all the data they need to gain this understanding. At the same time, though, there’s so much data available that deriving any value from it can often appear challenging. It can be hard to know, for example, exactly what data a bank has, where that data’s stored, whether it’s up to date and accurate, and at all times, ensuring it’s secure and compliant. But managing this wealth of data needn’t be overwhelming. Implementing a company-wide solution for managing customer lifecycle information can ensure banks deliver the experience their customers have come to expect and at the same time, deliver optimal employee engagements.
