By Eric Crabtree, Global Head of Financial Services at Unisys 

We are living in a new age – the age of the customer. Banks are being disrupted by market forces, increasing compliance requirements, and new technologies such as Blockchain, real-time payments, tokenization, and APIs. But most of all, banks are being challenged by the increasing expectations of customers, who are no longer satisfied with inconsistent service over the multiple channels of the bank.

In line with this, the majority of banks are struggling to move forward from their established banking models. In fact, studies have shown that while 96 per cent of bankers agree that banking is evolving to become a series of inter-connected digital financial services within a secure and regulated ecosystem, only 13 per cent see themselves as prepared and equipped to support such an ecosystem.

Customer centricity is paramount when creating digital transformation strategies and the rise of challenger banks targeting specific customers, as well as new payment solutions is urging a seamless relationship between technology and experience. True transformation requires new ways of working, thinking, and positioning, but how do we actually get there?

I looked at three core developments in banking, and how customer centricity is built into the development road map to drive adoption success in their integration– both internally and externally.

1. Omnichannel digital banking for a seamless customer journey

Customers are demanding that banks know who they are, understand their financial needs, and offer speedy and relevant responses to questions and requirements. Consistent service over all the touchpoints of the bank (whether mobile banking, internet, branch, or contact center) is necessary to provide a truly exceptional, frictionless customer experience. The entire customer journey must be taken into consideration to ensure customer satisfaction, customer loyalty, and customer lifetime value is achieved.

2. Improved security without compromising the customer experience

Security and customer experience have often been at odds with one another. Banks today need to fortify omnichannel security and stay on top of regulations without compromising the customer experience. This is made possible through working with effective partners or developing internal teams to deliver:

• Risk-based adaptive biometric and behavioral profiling:to securely identify customers, authenticate access, and validate transactions in real-time
• Financial crime artificial intelligence:to prevent fraud by detecting and resolving issues in real-time
• Identity-based micro-segmentation techniques and encryption: to mitigate cyberattacks from outside or within the banking institution by rendering devices, data, and end users undetectable on networks 

3. Advanced analytics to drive enterprise efficiency

Advanced analytics are a must for banks today. By delivering actionable insights, advanced analytics can improve operational and sales efficiency, and realize cost reductions across multiple functions. For example:

• In marketing,analytics can boost campaign performance by using historic data to identify target customers, revealing high impact messaging and relevant solutions
• In product design, insights can pinpoint most-relevant products and services at unprecedented scale and speed
• In customer service, analytical models connect customer responses and call center activity to improve processes and customer satisfaction levels 

As the banking sector navigates through this period of unprecedented disruption and transformation,banks have the opportunity to reinvent themselves. This reinvention has the potential to go beyond digital transformation to business transformation – adding value across the organisation.

For every bank, finding the right digital transformation solution to integrate into tomorrow’s digital banking ecosystem, with customer experience as a cornerstone for development,can be the key to tomorrow’s success.