Banking Digital Transformation: Pivots & Trends in 2023

March 15, 2023

As part of your digital transformation strategy, you must understand the latest and greatest digital transformation trends. Before you can incorporate the best technologies for your users, you must first know what’s out there.

During this article, we’ll revisit some design trends we discussed recently, and then dive into digital transformation trends we’ll see continue through 2022 and 2023.

Banking digital transformation trends: what are they?

Customer readiness for AI is high, but trust must be built

Technology has had a profound impact on financial services – even fintech and top players are heavily investing in AI, automation, and security. 

In terms of technology, a bank must show that it cares about its customers and build a more positive customer experience. When you deploy a chatbot, your customers will feel comfortable discussing their financial matters with you. 

The second trend is that people love technology, but they still care about human connections

Chatbots provide speed and efficiency, but what happens when your customers are frustrated? Customer care agents are crucial to providing not just quick solutions, but also an empathetic ear. 

Finding out what customers need is trend 3

Rather than just reacting when your customers ask questions, be proactive. You should be proactive in detecting them. Personalized advice on finance is desired by nine out of ten of your customers, but only three out of ten get it. Creating great customer experiences starts with finding and fixing customer gaps.  

What are the benefits of digital transformation for the financial services industry?

Financial services can benefit from digital transformation in the following five ways:

Customer experience: customers are digitally savvy, and you need to catch up. Tracking and engaging with customers in real-time can be made easier with digital transformation in financial services. Your products and services will also be more personalized.

Streamlining data and automating repetitive tasks will make your operations more efficient with digital transformation. You will save money and time by doing this.

Management of precise data has never been easier. Collecting, storing, and managing data has never been simpler. Using this data, you can gain insights that lead to insight-driven decisions. 

Online cashless transactions will become more mainstream due to lower transaction costs. By reducing intermediate channel costs, physical cash could be delivered more quickly.

Reporting process in real-time: With real-time data available, you are better prepared to handle customer complaints and spot problems early. 

What can financial services do to make the leap into the digital age?

There will be bumps along the way – especially without a solid strategy. Building and executing digital strategies in financial services requires keeping your key business objectives in mind.

1. Analyze data and collect insights 

Digital transformation in financial services should be guided by data. 

You already have a lot of structured and unstructured data from customer interactions on your website, social media, and through customer support. Perhaps you learn through certain social media channels that your customers are asking questions, sharing concerns, and providing feedback, but you aren’t there to answer them. Your brand’s reputation is negatively affected as a result. 

It may be worthwhile to allocate resources to a more robust social media strategy that engages with and responds to customer interactions. In any case, if you’re interested in improving financial services social media marketing, let data guide your decisions. 

2. Utilize social media to your advantage

With its roots dating back to 1873, Morgan Stanley Wealth Management leverages social media like a modern-day startup. An agent at Morgan Stanley got a $70 million account through LinkedIn in 2013, after having massive social media followings across different platforms.

That’s awesome, isn’t it?

There is no doubt that social media has become a source of truth for many consumers. Financial services and social media: what’s the deal?

Prior to investing time and money in a brand, people research and read reviews. Social media channels are used to share feedback, reviews, concerns, and questions. To build great relationships with your customers, you need to connect with them across these digital channels. Providing consistency in conversation across multiple channels is the key to creating great customer experiences.

Social media in financial services: how can it improve customer experience?

There is more to customer service than just customer service. Make sure you are proactive in taking care of your customers’ needs, rather than just reacting to them. Today, customer experience goes beyond excellent service at banks, from multi-channel access to instant responses to real-time engagement with zero tolerance for data breaches to being able to access their bank account through multiple channels.

Posting and interacting on your corporate brand handles is the most common way to capitalize on social media. Engaging with your customers on their preferred channels is easy with automated social publishing and engagement. 

How would you ensure consistency in messaging if your brand is spread across multiple regions and locations? If you want to deliver a personalized experience no matter where you are, what can you do?

In financial services, however, corporate brand handles are usually not accessible to local branches. By using a local social solution, your local teams can reach a more targeted audience to ensure brand compliance and regulatory compliance. In the financial services industry, it will be a tremendous asset to your digital strategy

As well, social selling solutions can be an excellent tool for identifying, connecting with, and nurturing potential customers. 

3. A highly regulated industry requires the right technology stack

It A successful digital strategy in financial services is often impossible to implement. Choosing the right solution can make all the difference when you have so many regulations to follow, so much data to sort through, and so many tools to choose from. 

Companies often make the mistake of selecting different solutions for different needs: 

  • It is easy for social media managers to post and engage on branded handles with one tool 
  • Metrics and dashboards are gathered and viewed by the data and analytics team using a separate tool 
  • Communication with customers and addressing their concerns is made easier by another tool available to the customer care team

Having too many tools can create silos between departments, which can lead to confusion, misalignment, and mistakes that can result in costly regulatory fines. 

By choosing a Unified Customer Experience Management (Unified-CXM) platform for all front-office functions, you facilitate communication across customer-facing teams and improve customer experiences.

Bringing your omnichannel strategy to life across all customer touchpoints ensures regulatory and brand compliance – a must-have for executing a digital transformation strategy in financial services.

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