As the demand for personalized, digital experiences booms among consumers worldwide, banks and financial institutions (FIs) are in a constant race of becoming a digital-first organization. This put forth many tech innovation breakthroughs for the financial industry in recent years, as bank customers further stray from conventional banking and prioritize remote interactions more.
Digitalization will continue to lead further changes in customer behavior, and this established its role in shaping the financial services industry for the foreseeable future. To gain a strong headstart in 2023, below are 5 digital banking trends that are set to dominate the industry next year.
1. Hyper-personalized banking on the rise
As can already be observed, the financial services industry is rapidly becoming experience-oriented, rather than product-centered. Customer experience has never been more prioritized by banks and FIs alike, as it has become a significant differentiator within the industry. As banks strive to acquire and retain customers, they are offering hyper-personalized products and services, therefore using it as their competitive advantage.
Equipped with machine learning and data analytics, banks will be more empowered to analyze customer behaviours and providing them with real-time solutions and products that are tailored to their needs. Ultimately, high level personalization creates stronger loyalty as it utilizes past interactions to predict future needs – this will then increase sales and engagement rate.
However, recent studies had shown that many FIs are still lagging when it comes to taking advantage of hyper-personalization. This is mainly due to their lack of data and analytic capabilities to drive strategies. To combat this, banks must first equip themselves with the right elements when planning for effective digital marketing strategies (link to previous article).
2. The surge of open banking
With the use of application programming interfaces (APIs), open banking allows banks to share information and data with other FIs to better serve the customers’ needs. This ensures a faster service and better recommendations for the customers’ financial management, customized according to their own situations. Many pioneering banks worldwide have already adopted APIs and achieved impressive results, this is as it functions as an effective tools for banks to create new opportunities in cross-selling products or transactions.
The aggregation of data enabled from the use of APIs will blur the boundaries between banks and other FIs, and this integration is expected to bring forth faster innovations and superior customer experiences in the upcoming years. As such, it is likely that open APIs will still be the preferred choice for banks and third-party providers in 2023.
3. Stronger AI presence
As of now, banks are already leveraging on Artificial Intelligence (AI) to solve challenges in risk management, fraud detection, cybersecurity, customer service and turnover rate. By 2023, the usage of AI will only be further maximized as more and more bank customers are using it to access and manage their finances.
AI is projected to reduce banks’ operating costs by 22% around 2030, which could amount to $1 trillion of savings ahead. It is currently the norm for banks to utilize Natural Language Processing (NLP) for customer interactions, as the chatbots and virtual assistants have already taken over the industry. With this, banks can provide exceptional customer service with automated answers to FAQs, reducing call time and allowing the staff to focus on more valuable tasks. Hence, it is only natural that banks worldwide leverage on AI to enhance their customer experience even more in 2023.
4. Accommodative digital ecosystems
With the emergence of super apps, combined with the increased demand of self-service among bank customers, banks and FIs need to constantly expand their digital ecosystems – ensuring that it is accommodative to technological disruptions, while at the same time integrated across its layers both horizontally and vertically.
Not only does it reduce friction for customers, making their digital banking experience all the more seamless, integrated ecosystems also help banks to unionize their processes, as all channels are interconnected to each other. Many digital banks have headed this path, as they invest more in designing processes and platforms that can enable their digital ecosystem to advance.
5. Blockchain and cryptocurrency are changing the financial landscape
Despite its volatile nature, cryptocurrency has successfully left its mark on the financial market due to its growing popularity. It is anticipated that cryptocurrency payments will soon be part of people’s daily transactions, as many FIs have already explored hidden bank opportunities within this sphere. For instance, many digital banks are already offering payment services that are crypto-compatible.
Blockchain itself, which serves as a wallet that supports crypto trading, is said to have the potential of booming the global economy by $1.76 trillion within the next decade. This gives the banking industry an abundance of hidden revenues as it rules almost 30% of blockchain’s market value. Moreover, the adoption rate for blockchain services is incredibly fast, with an estimated of 81 million users worldwide just this year.
To waste such opportunity would bring devastating losses of revenues, as banks should invest more in blockchain innovations in order to secure this untapped market. By becoming agile, flexible and crypto-compatible, digital banks can gain a competitive advantage unlike no other, as it can leverage on blockchain and cryptocurrency not only for transactions but also for contracts and dispute resolution, and identity management.
Overcome 2023 challenges with INFOPRO’s digital solutions
Fortunately with INFOPRO’s comprehensive solutions, banks are no longer alone in anticipating future challenges and hurdles. Our digital banking solutions offer comprehensive customer-centric features that guarantee supreme functionality, scalability and flexibility for FIs across 35 countries. This undoubtedly will help banks and FIs to thrive above any possible issues in 2023.
For more information on the many types of solutions we offer, visit our homepage and reach out for a complementary consultation.