The financial services industry has been facing significant challenges over the past decade. The economic downturn and changes in consumer behaviour forced the industry to reconsider how it did business.
Technology especially has had a big impact on the sector. Today, consumers expect to be able to login, transfer, and budget on any of their devices and clients expect better data faster than ever before.
On top of that, competition is growing and larger institutions now compete with smaller peer-to-peer firms who have adapted technology earlier with significant competitive advantages. Our experts picked out some of the trends in financial services.
Fintech is not the competition
Companies are increasingly looking for their teams to be move innovative while lowering costs and one of the ways they have done this is by partnering with Fintech firms. According to a recent article from PwC, the number of startups in fintech has risen by more than 50% since 2011. By partnering with Fintech organisations companies can reduce costs, drive innovation, improve personalisation and deliver better insights into their customers.
Responding to consumer demands
Customers are driving businesses to digitise and personalise their experiences in the same way they have demanded it of other industries such as retail and media. They want instant and immediate access to information, accounts and support. E-commerce has now just become commerce and is one of the many standard channels customers expect a seamless customer experience.
Data protection and cybersecurity
According toImperva, almost half (45%) of financial services companies experienced between one and five breaches in data security last year. As attacks become more sophisticated and frequent regulations around data protection have increased, data protection and cybersecurity have become even more important.
Add to that that customers demand 24 access to their information wherever they are in the world and data protection has become more complex. Furthermore, as companies continue to adopt cloud-based applications and consumers demanding a more complex relationship with their banks, there is a greater need for organisations to up their game to ensure data being passed through the cloud is as scrutinised and protected like all other data.