Mobile banking: disruptive technologies and perspectives for banks


In 2015, the McKinney Global Institute declared that "banks have three to five years to become experts digitally", or face a sad fate similar to that of laggards in other industries. This is a powerful and condemnatory statement. The end of 2018 is approaching and, while the banking industry has made significant progress in navigating digital interruptions and increasing mobility, they must maintain their pace of mobileapplication development to meet customer expectations.



With the Fitch industry turning around the established order of mobile banking, banks are facing a unique environment full of threats and opportunities. New technologies and the enriched functionality of mobile applications are giving rise to consumer demand for greater flexibility and pro activity in their financial lives.
This article will analyze how the behavior of clients is changing with the increase of mobile banking; use of mobile banking in Canada; barriers to adoption; challenges for banks; and the strategies that banks can use to benefit from new technological developments in the mobile space.

The rise of mobile banking: consumer use and attitudes

Similar to mobile payments, the adoption by mobile banking users has been gradual rather than explosive. Since the inception of mobile banking, consumers expect their financial providers to offer the value of the customer experience at the same pace as other mobile application services; and with high expectations, Canadian consumers are satisfied with their bank's digital experience.
According to the Canadian Bankers Association (CBA), Canadian attitudes towards mobile banking and Fitch innovations are very favorable among consumers:
In 2017, the six major Canadian banks registered 398 million mobile banking transactions.
  • ·         90% of Canadians say that banks have done well to bring innovation to banking.
  • ·         26% of Canadians say their use of mobile banking is increasing.

Canadian customers of retail banks value the convenience of mobile banking offers. The CBA also reports three areas of importance to consumers:
  • ·         90% of Canadians value banking at a convenient time.
  • ·         77% of Canadians value time savings.
  • ·         77% of Canadians value banking from anywhere.

What is interesting is that J.D. Power states that almost half of the customers in Canadian retail banks identify themselves as "digital-centric" and 32% describe themselves as "digital only" bankers. Audiences only for mobile devices are growing in Canada and more time is being spent on mobile applications, and despite the overwhelmingly positive comments, only 17% of Canadians are bankers for mobile devices only.

Barriers to user adoption

The dis connect between Canadian mobile time spending and mobile-only bankers could be the result of several factors. Although consumers are interested in more mobile banking functionality, one of the biggest obstacles to adoption is security. Many users distrust the security of their money and their personal information when they trust their smartphones.
However, attitudes are changing gradually. Banks have comprehensive security systems and work 24 hours a day to protect mobile banking customers against fraud. In fact, over the past decade, banks have invested $ 84.5 billion in technology, which includes technology dedicated to security measures.
Apart from security, it is possible that the low number of bankers that only use mobile devices refers to a continuous commitment to the cross-platform experience, or that banks have to update their mobility potential to offer a value of customer experience beyond of what is considered a banking standard.
The banking industry has done well to meet the standards that Intech innovations have created. They have rotated at full speed and have delivered well-received digital options, but the truth is that technology is not slowing down to congratulate them and neither are users of mobile banks. Functions, such as checking account balances and recent transactions, making transfers, depositing checks through photographs and receiving notifications make the banking experience more valuable; however, these mobile banking functions are now considered a commonplace and banks must expand the limits. Today's customers expect hyper-personalized customer trips and superior convenience.

Challenges for banks

While the increase in mobile banking and Intech services presents a great opportunity, banks still face a lot of challenges. There is an understanding that the urgency of innovation is acute, however, these impediments remain considerable barriers to change:
Bureaucracy and organizational structures: startups enjoy a level of flexibility that large financial institutions can not
Long development cycles: many banks are still in the process of changing processes to adopt a more agile and agile development philosophy
Legacy systems: adopting and implementing new technologies is more difficult with long-established systems implemented
Organizational thinking: similarly, organizational thinking should change to a more proactive, agile and agile philosophy to allow banks to keep up with changing consumer behavior and technological advances
Perception of security: as mentioned above, banks must continue working to build trust with consumers, particularly with new innovations in mobile banking and other digital services

Strategies for banks to improve the services and technology of mobile banking

Banks that do not keep up to date run the risk of external competitors capturing market share with their mobile strategies. To stay ahead of the curve and deploy the network in evolving mobile banking and in the Intech space, banks must focus their efforts on several essential areas.

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