Digital Transformation in Banking: IT strategy and the roadmap ahead

In the first part of this article, we discussed the challenges involved in digital transformation in banking.

The technology landscape or choices available to a bank are ever-expanding. We will look at some of the key factors that are accelerating the adoption of digital technologies in banks:

• Artificial Intelligence, which is currently represented by chatbots, online assistants, and faster account creation, is gradually gaining popularity within cybersecurity when it comes to identifying suspicious online activities and data analysis in case of money laundering.
• Blockchain can result in better accuracy, secure data, and transparent transactions, and facilitate safe interactions. As an important function of blockchains, smart contracts also have significant potential.
• Cloud computing results in more efficient transactions, increased productivity, continuous development, and integration of new products and services.
• IoT is assisting in real-time data analysis. Thanks to wearables, customers can easily and seamlessly make contactless payments and with the help of biometric sensors, the authentication process is becoming more secure and protected.
• Data mining and Big Data also have an integral role to play, by creating highly personalized offers and solutions, analyzing trends, and predicting when customers need loans, engaging with cross or up-sell activities, and using customer information to create targeted marketing campaigns.

Customer engagement and time-to-market are the critical KPIs, so the digital product platform must be:

• component-based;
• API-driven;
• cloud-native;

All of these will enable the creation of new products and services in a quicker and cost-effective manner. This would also lead to digitizing the customer journey and building tools and applications around it, with a focus on specific critical points.

A cloud-forward future

Planning and implementing cloud solutions will start by identifying pilot and relevant use cases, which will lead to large-scale adoption. A cloud business case should emphasize how the bank can cost-effectively tap into cloud-delivered solutions to drive customer insights, experiences, offers, revenue, cost reduction, onboard better talent, and provide more consistent enterprise operating platforms.

Cost and time-to-market are key factors when companies are seeking to leverage technologies. Vendors offering different cloud platforms that enable an organization to move a workload from one cloud to another and meet business needs can also apply best practices built on one cloud platform using other cloud vendors’ platforms. Better pricing can be offered by developing a common understanding of architectural components, adopting a multi-vendor / multi-cloud strategy, an adaptive governance strategy, which will also reduce the risk of vendor lock-in.

Finally, data security concerns are of utmost importance, so new risks and vulnerabilities need to be identified and mitigated based on an enterprise’s current infrastructure and capabilities. Also, regulatory compliances are ever-evolving as cross-border transactions are the norm, especially when it comes to capital analysis, solvency, anti-money laundering, and fraud detection. In such a scenario, vendors need to adapt, support and lead initiatives that update their platforms and services on that front.

In conclusion

The future of digital banking transformation is promising, and it is predicted that it will change the entire concept of traditional banks while bringing more customer-centricity. To begin the digital transformation journey, institutions must develop a detailed strategy to change their distribution model, revise and enhance value offers, as well as develop end-to-end customer-centered processes that will result in growth and customer satisfaction.

You can read the first part of this article here.