Over the course of the last two years, conversations about the necessity of widespread digitalization have dominated the banking industry. Rapidly advancing technology, as well as changes in market conditions and consumer dynamics, have pushed banks to reevaluate—and in many cases, to reimagine—their current operations. In particular, the growing popularity of mobile and online banking and the corresponding falling relevance of the physical bank branch as a customer service outpost have pushed banks the world over toward more digital-first approaches.
Pursuing greater technological innovation within your bank is one key to navigating these challenging times. Utilizing specialized banking software can help you address performance gaps and other areas of improvement in your current retail banking processes. Before you can even decide what software to invest in, however, you must first identify which aspects of your bank would benefit most from such improvement. Consider, for example, innovating in one or more of the following common areas:
Attracting and Retaining Customers
Personalized customer service is one of the most pressing client demands across many industries, and this is no less true in banking. Luckily, the right banking software can help your bank acquire and retain more customers by building more positive customer experiences. You might invest, for example, in software that can consolidate customer data alongside marketing and sales data. This collected information will, in turn, enable you to craft offers that are maximally relevant to your target audience.
Digitization will also enable your bank to serve its customers—and enable them to serve themselves—on whatever interaction channels they prefer. Most quality banking software can be customized to offer a combination of self-service and assisted customer service solutions that help conduct transactions and solve problems more efficiently.
Managing Loans and Deposits
Your bank can elevate its product portfolio for loans and deposits by utilizing digital banking solutions. The software is capable of efficiently defining and compiling business rules, product definitions, pricing schemes, and other metrics. It can also implement flexible pricing processes for the benefit of both the bank and the customers. These important functions serve to simplify customer engagement with your services and improve their usability, which will, in turn, improve your clients’ experience on the whole.
Digitally optimizing your portfolios can also drive your bank to develop more cutting-edge products, as well as expedite the launch and sale of those products. Through the software, for example, you can easily create useful product bundles that address your customers’ pressing needs. Making these available is sure to boost both revenue and customer retention rates.
Optimizing Collection and Recovery Processes
Banks seeking ways to avoid and mitigate credit losses will be well-served by digital banking solutions that specifically target collections and recovery. Automating these processes thus fully reduces operating costs for the bank and the consumer both without sacrificing efficiency. For instance, these programs are able to monitor and report expeditiously on the status of outstanding debts to the bank, with specialized functions for tracking delinquencies, facilitating late collections, and the like. Furthermore, they allow for a higher level of personalization when it comes to defining payment plans according to the needs and financial situations of individual customers.
Naturally, digital banking software can also be relied upon to be fully secure and transparent. Most platforms are designed to reflect updates to workflow and costs in real time throughout the collection or recovery process.
Maximizing and Controlling Revenue
Transferring the majority—if not the entirety—of your bank’s revenue management and billing operations to the cloud can do wonders when it comes to maximizing revenue. Working from the cloud will help your bank work faster and more flexibly, allowing you to offer a broader and more adaptable array of pricing and billing options to your customers. Cloud service also allows your bank to manage many discrete business lines and handle multiple product portfolios from a single unified platform.
The best digital revenue management solutions will be able to integrate seamlessly with any other new or preexisting solutions your bank utilizes. Whether you need to sync the software up with front- or back-end office systems, you can be fully assured of a smooth and user-friendly experience.
Communicating with Your Client Base
Digitalization affords banks greater efficiency, and the best part is this need not come at the cost of human, personal engagement. Though current customers have fewer reasons to visit physical banks and speak with bankers one-on-one, digital solutions can create a similarly personal, responsive experience through technology-mediated touchpoints. For instance, the software may support communication through multiple channels, allowing customers to get in touch with your bank through their preferred medium.
New product offers, monthly billing statements, and important news updates and other information can now also be shared with your customers from the cloud. This ensures timely and consistent updates, and it also helps facilitate an engaged and responsive dynamic between bank and clients.
As has been outlined above, digital innovation can help refresh and optimize many facets of retail banking. Naturally, astute needs assessment is crucial in order to identify which facets it makes most sense to prioritize during the search for appropriate digital solutions. Finding and implementing the right software for your bank will surely help carry it toward a brighter future.
