Remember banks and building societies?
They used to sit between shops on busy town streets.
Customers used to go inside to carry out various financial transactions and interact with real-life cashiers.
Joking aside, it feels like banking is second only to retail when it comes to sectors that have been turbo-charged by the recent digital revolution.
Today, many of us – Gens X, Y and Z in particular – do all of our banking online, increasingly via smartphone apps that put control of our cash in the palm of our hand.
As a result, the number of physical banks is slowly decreasing as inexorable digitisation simplifies once-complex processes and brilliantly automates more and more aspects of our daily lives.
Convenience, speed, security: all are at the very heart of that new financial services model.
For providers (and their channel partners) of the technology upon which it all depends, it is an ever-evolving market packed full of opportunity.
As is always the case, some are more on the money than others.
“Today's banks must keep up with the evolution of technology and enable their customers to benefit from it,” says Christopher Chrcek, Head of CPaaS for Enterprise at leading global digital provider Syniverse, whose smart ‘all-in-one-place’ communications platform helps financial services organizations do just that.
“The modern customer wants to access all of their banks’ products and services through any channel or medium of communication they prefer and at times which suit them.
“Many do not want to have to go into a physical bricks and mortar bank. Many are happier communicating with a chatbot at, say, 2am. From the banks’ perspective, they need to be able to sell those same customers new products and services and build brand loyalty and trust.
“All of that is now possible digitally – the smarts of the platform through which it is all delivered plus the quality of the user experience are powerful differentiators.”
