How Is The Financial Services Industry Adapting To Digital Change?

Paolo Culora, Head of Professional and Financial Services at Digital Space, details how the financial services industry is adapting to meet rapid digital change.

However, the introduction of multiple, lengthy lockdown periods combined with a drastic transformation in how and where professionals fulfil their jobs has forced any archaic business practices to change – and quickly. In fact, a recent report by Deloitte revealed that 86% of bankers believe their organisation should continue to invest in digital to gain competitive edge – with a further 43% revealing that their organisation’s current digital capability is far from that of their industry leaders. With that in mind, how exactly is the finance service industry embracing digital change? And more importantly, how are service providers utilising digital solutions to fulfil customer demands, whilst still adhering to complex compliance procedures? 

Digital Trends In Financial Services

Like other industry sectors, financial institutions are continuing to look at different ways in which they can enhance operational efficiencies, whilst improving customer experience – particularly as the use of digital and even social media platforms have transformed the relationship between banks and their clients in recent years.  

As a result, more and more financial institutions are investing in multi-cloud strategies and platforms, together with analytical integration tools and services to integrate into both bank systems and resource centres. Not only do these solutions provide secure access to large quantities of data stored in the cloud, but advances in Artificial Intelligence [AI] are also helping financial institutions to keep track of customer trends and make valuable decisions in real-time.

What’s more, with the increase in remote working, financial institutions have also invested in new technologies to aid both internal and external communication. As a result, applications like Microsoft 365 are being used to drive collaborative working and productivity by enabling users to access, share and edit files securely from any location via a desktop, tablet or mobile, whilst the implementation of Desktop as a Service (DaaS) is being used to maintain ‘business as usual’, ensuring customer experience isn’t compromised by providing agility and accessibility. 

Fast And Effective Implementation 

According to the latest data, the current COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated digital change and investment in new technologies by an average of 5 – 6 years. Despite being an industry bogged down in complex approval processes, financial institutions have been able to adapt in accordance with this trend - adopting new agile ways of working and increasing speed to market on many fronts with a ‘shift to the left’ - which means by-passing long, drawn out processes and obstacles to obtaining approval through pre-approved solutions. As a result, financial institutions can now simplify controls and policies to effectively change speed, whilst retaining the right compliance and security measures. This means banks can speed up the release of services from months into hours, increasing efficiency whilst improving customer experience as a result.

Remote, Compliant, And Secure

The evolution of the digital landscape has created concern over compliance and security within the financial industry, particularly with the growing risk of cyber-crime – which has accelerated by 200% following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.  However, as financial institutions become increasingly reliant on technology, data and digital solutions to deliver customer service, it’s clear that compliance processes and procedures need to adapt and evolve in line with this digital change. Key to this is the development of an effective compliance culture, which can be driven by secure technology solutions to enable financial institutions to standardise procedures and processes whilst ensuring all team members – regardless of their location – can keep pace with the latest industry regulations and/or policy changes. 

Final words

Although the financial services industry is now embracing digital change, the continuous evolution of technology means institutions will need to maintain an agile approach – not only in product and customer service delivery, but also to ensure they can continue to change in line with market demand. Ultimately, those who continue to adapt and invest in the latest connected, productive, and secure solutions are the institutions that will maintain competitive advantage – both now and in the future.