Daily Editorial Update – Banks need rapid digitalisation

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If the last epoch in retail banking was defined by a boom-to-bust expansion of consumer credit, the current one will be defined by digital. This will include rapid innovation in payments and the broader transformation in systems enabled by digital technologies. Banks have 3-5 years at most to become digitally proficient. If they fail, they risk entering a spiral of decline similar to laggards in other industries.

Revenues and profits will migrate at scale toward banks that successfully use digital technologies to automate processes, create new products, improve regulatory compliance, transform the experiences of their customers and disrupt key components of the value chain.

Institutions that resist digital innovation will be punished by customers, financial markets and, sometimes, regulators. Indeed, digital laggards could see up to 35% of net profit eroded, while winners may realise a profit upside of 40% or more.

Globally, more innovative incumbent banks and financial institutions are moving rapidly towards digital.… Most have invested in transaction migration and upgraded web and mobile technologies and created innovation and testing centres.

In addition, banks increasingly realise that to succeed with digital, they must adopt the habits and culture of digitally native companies: say, opening up the banks’ application programming interfaces, pursuing agile development or hosting hackathons to foster intensive digital collaboration.

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