How many features of that fancy smartphone do you use on a regular basis? If you’re like me, an average mobile phone user, not many, I bet.
The thing is, it’s no different with for mobile banking. While mobile technology continues to evolve rapidly – take wearables for instance, which will be the second highest selling consumer electronics product by 2020 – banks are yet to exploit even its existing power to the fullest.
This is lost opportunity, at a minimum. We believe banks must intensify their approach to digital, reworking strategy if needed to keep pace with the shifts in the market. In the past, their reluctance to forge ahead could have stemmed from concerns about security and compliance. But today, they need have no such fears, because security technology has also advanced leaps and bounds. Hence banks don’t have to choose between quality of experience and robust security. They can have both.
Having established the need for deepening mobility adoption by banks, let us examine some of the possible scenarios of the future. Banks can indeed onboard customers without them ever visiting a branch and help him sign in by just looking into the app. In certain countries, banks have gone mobile first to spread financial inclusion. They could really benefit from a facility such as this.
Another use case is transaction banking on wearables. Imagine that a guy named John is out on his morning run. During a break, he taps his smart watch to see a notification reminding him that his rent to Tom, the landlord, is due today. He taps his approval to a question asking him if he would like to initiate payment. The transfer goes through, even as he begins to run again. In next to no time, Tom’s acknowledgement of the payment pops up on his wrist.
Here’s another good one – a facility to authenticate oneself without a password. All it would take is a mobile phone with a front camera to complete an iris scan, and presto, you are in that quickly.
It is time to get ready for the frictionless banking experience. If these sound somewhat far-fetched you need to be there at Confluence 2016. You really need to see for yourself our innovative solution that provides an Uber type, simple to use, frictionless, end user experience. The emerging wealth generation and those that think banking relationship is too complicated to utilize will absolutely love it!
Month: April 2016
When Networks Rule
So today, the world’s largest transportation company owns zero fleet, the largest hotelier lists more than a million rooms but owns none of them, and the largest movie service doesn’t have a theater to its name. And Alibaba – which was only a local e-commerce provider just a couple of years ago – is not merely repeatedly breaking global sales records, but obliterating them.
What these providers have in common is a winning business model that leverages the collective power of a network or ecosystem to deliver incredible experiences at competitive prices to customers, at scale.
How can banks not be a part of that? Straightaway, we can think of a couple of areas of digital technology-driven opportunity for banks and their customers. These are SMB (Small and Medium Businesses) commerce and marketplace lending. At Confluence 2016, we will explore how banks can be enabled to capitalize on these opportunities.
- SMB commerce: Digital is not the sole prerogative of big business. Progressive small and mid-sized businesses are equally keen to ride the digital wave by entering e-commerce. We believe banks are rightly placed to enable their SMB clients to open an e-commerce store with ease. Imagine a scenario where a bank can, one, set up its own online shopping mall and rent out space to SMB customers, and two, provide those customers with tools so they can easily build fully customized online outlets.
- Marketplace lending platform: The peer-to-peer lending market is gaining traction and is expected to cross US$ 1 trillion by 2025. Prosper and Lending Club have originated loans worth US$9 billion so far. Banks can participate in this wonderful opportunity by combining the latest technologies with their expertise in credit assessment, to generate a new stream of revenue.
We will showcase some of these scenarios and also invite clients to share their usage experience at Confluence. We hope you will be there to see it for yourselves.
Getting Truly Digital at Confluence
As we head into what promises to be a very exciting Confluence, here’s what you can expect from Finacle.
Infosys Confluence 2016 focuses on Zero Distance, the approach to operating at the convergence of desirability, feasibility and viability. By uncovering ways for us to connect with end users, by bringing to life desirable ideas and by creating value from them. It’s a framework that will allow you to adapt and respond to rapid digital disruption, on the basis of innovation, automation and lifelong learning. At Finacle, we are bringing this spirit to life by enabling our customers to deliver truly digital experiences to their customers. TrulyDigital Banking is therefore our chosen theme for the Finacle track at Confluence 2016.
But why do we even need a theme like that, when digitalization is clearly on the mind of every banker on the planet?
For a good reason…there is no common, accepted understanding of what truly digital banking really means. We intend to bring to you the “blueprint” of a truly digital bank that will help guide you on your journey to digital transformation.
So what does a TrulyDigital bank do?
Provides Frictionless Banking
A truly digital bank needs to reimagine its customer’s banking experience. Increasingly customers are demanding greater speed, convenience, accessibility, security and personalization. For the truly digital bank, it is all about delivering a frictionless delightful experience anyplace anywhere anytime. For example, even something as routine as account opening could be completely redesigned to suit customer behavior and preference, and implemented with the help of the latest digital technologies and tools, such as digital onboarding, biometric authentication. The same can be extended to other banking interactions delivered consistently across desktops, tablets and smartphones.
Exists in an ecosystem
The traditional monolithic bank is rapidly unbundling at the hands of new-age, technology driven players that are threatening parts of the banking business, like payments. At the same time, it is becoming impossible for the conventional bank to be everything to everyone. These trends are driving the expansion of the banking ecosystem. The truly digital bank will have to coexist within this ecosystem, collaborating and co-operating with its customers, customers’ customers and competition to create an aggregated portfolio of products and services that fulfills its customers’ varied needs.
Puts insight ahead of everything
Analytics-driven insight will be the most valuable resource in a truly digital bank, which will distinguish itself with its ability to quickly capture and convert data in near- or real-time into actionable insight. Analytics will be part of enterprise culture, and therefore encompass every employee regardless of job, role or function. The following four aspects of banking will see increasing usage of analytics – customer experience improvement, fraud and risk management, revenue expansion and operations optimization.
Practices ubiquitous automation
The truly digital bank will automate its business in the interest of efficiency and optimization. Automation, driven by business rules, algorithms and machine learning, will enable the banks to process millions of transactions every day without increasing costs. At the same time, it will accelerate the pace of business expansion, as well as free the workforce from repetitive tasks so that they can focus on value generating activities.
At Confluence, we will talk about all these ideas in greater detail, but more importantly, we will demonstrate some of our amazing new offerings for truly digital banking. You don’t want to miss it for anything.
Zero the Distance to Customers with Advanced Analytics
At Infosys Zero Distance (ZD) is a quest to progressively reduce the gap between what clients expect of us and what we deliver. Today all our significant actions are measured against the Zero Distance yardstick.
And so when the time came to name a theme for Confluence 2016, Zero Distance was the obvious choice.
At Infosys Finacle, we have been applying the ZD principle to not only get closer to our clients, but also to enable our clients zero the distance to their clients. One way in which we are doing that is by enabling our clients to evolve into truly digital banks. This calls for not only reengineering banking functions around digital technologies, but actually reinventing the banking model to suit a truly digital culture.
Leveraging data driven insights to arrive at key decisions, is a vital part of that agenda. Today banks have access to almost unlimited consumer data. With increasing digitalization, the flow of data will only intensify as the number of data sources, especially external ones, multiplies at speed. Fortunately, development of analytics technologies has caught up with the pace of data proliferation, and today banks have the choice of several advanced analytics applications for converting the data at their disposal into granular, real-time insights into virtually every aspect of the banking business.
Take customer understanding, for instance. Using advanced analytics, banks can group their customers based on individual values, expectations, and needs, rather than on aggregated demographics. Identical individuality has been replaced by individual identity.
That is but one use case. Analytics can inform virtually every type of decision that a bank needs to take on a day-to-day basis. Consider the following scenarios:
John, a customer of XYZ Bank, has been reading and posting online reviews about a car he’s dying to own, to decide if it is indeed right for him. Does XYZ Bank get to know of this early enough to influence John’s decision? Can the Bank play a larger role here by offering him a test drive at the nearest showroom and helping him get the right financing option?
ABC Bank has multiple branches in one city. Does it measure the success of these branches by mapping the positive and negative experiences that customers have shared in online and offline channels? Which branches have gone the extra mile in creating positive experiences for customers? Which products are most popular?
Is A2Z Bank’s CEO empowered to closely monitor and manage the Bank’s key metrics that are tied to its financial goals? Is he able to drill down further by line of business to identify the issues that need his immediate attention?
At Confluence, we will explore how advanced analytics technologies can play a crucial enabling role in all these scenarios and more. We will talk about how the insights from analytics can build competitive advantage across the banking value chain. Don’t miss it.