Digital Transformation in Financial Services: Trends and Technologies

Technological innovation is necessary if companies want to meet their customers’ demands and enhance their experience. And that is the reason why companies are developing fintech apps to upkeep with the competition and stay afloat in the market. 

According to Deloitte

• 37% of the financial service providers in the survey say that the culture of the company plays a crucial role in its digital transformation journey.
• 38% of the finance companies are quick at adapting to the latest trends and technologies.
• 25% of the businesses just do it so that they can gain a competitive advantage in the market.

Digital transformation means implying digitalization at work or making the workplace digital. In short, teamwork and collaboration will be facilitated by technology instead of the good old physical locations.

What exactly does a Digital Business look like?

The meaning of digital transformation can vary from company to company but I can share a general characteristic of what a digital business looks like. 

• Collaborative: All the employees of the company will be working together towards a common goal. This will help build trust and transparency throughout various teams and departments in the organization. Employee interaction will also increase which may lead to better professional relationships in the office space.

• Cultural: Digital transformation will render a new work environment that will be different from the traditional business structure and hierarchies. It will also enable the employees to contribute to the team effectively by bringing ideas to the table and making effective decisions.

• Cloud-based: Cloud-based services allow companies to be flexible to meet their business requirements and streamline their IT infrastructure costs.

• Mobile: Customers need comfort. They want everything to happen with ease and at their convenience. And now, most of the customers happen to have a smartphone at their side all the time, they expect businesses and their services to be accessible from their mobile devices. And believe me when I say that it is the place from where almost half of the web traffic is generated.

• Innovative: There isn’t anything like a permanent solution in the digital world. It always keeps moving forward. So, businesses need to keep experimenting and learn from the results they obtain. That may help them make bigger changes across the organization.

• Continuous: As I said before, there is nothing like a fully developed solution. Technology keeps evolving. So the solutions you have installed right now in your systems would have to be upgraded when the new trends will take their place soon. Digital transformation too, always calls for adaptation to current technology. So, keep learning.

• Data-driven: This does not only mean gathering and analyzing the data related to the customers but also assessing what is happening inside your organization.

• Customer-centric: Ultimately, all these changes are made just because you can offer better products and services to your customer.

Digital Transformation Trends of the Finance Sector

1. Mobile and digital banking

A customer can transfer money, deposit checks, and even apply for a loan from their smartphone, all thanks to mobile banking. This digital banking environment is so comfortable for the customers in comparison to brick and mortar banks that they prefer to do online banking at their convenience. 

Ease of use, negligible waiting time, and 24/7 access are the reasons why customers prefer to use mobile banking. In fact, customers can now send money from different countries without going through unnecessary hassles, that is, with the help of mobile banking. 

2. Blockchain Technology

Nowadays, Blockchain is one of the most important aspects of digital payments, escrow facilities, loan processing, and more. And it still is gaining momentum.

It is also said that in the future the blockchain will be used for Regtech which uses information technology to streamline the regulatory processes so unnecessary regulation breaches can be avoided. 

3. Big data Technology

Financial institutions and banks are using machine learning technologies to process data and derive effective insights as well as analytical solutions from them. And based on these insights, fintech companies can serve their customers better by offering customized products and services that fit their requirements.

Big data is everything. Financial organizations can even use it to bring in some more investments and create a great work culture for both employees and customers. 

4. Mobile apps

In the era where everything is going mobile, banks and financial institutions are offering third-party services for financial budgeting mobile applications.

For that financial institutions and banks need to figure out what information they want to provide, companies they want to partner with and services they like to offer to their customers without the need of any middle man. 

5. Automated wealth management

There are infinite possibilities for artificial intelligence and it is already disrupting many industry verticals with machine learning technology and automation.

Automated wealth managers or wealth bots use complex algorithms to calculate best interest rates, investment opportunities, loan-providing institutions, and more.

Financial planning has now become a breeze due to the wealth bots. They are also helping people achieve their business objectives and that too with great returns. 

6. Financial Technology

Fintech is one of the emerging technologies that banks and financial institutions have adopted to deliver efficient finance services. It has been improved and evolved greatly from the ATM and credit cards to digital banking and blockchain technology. 

Many finance companies are using fintech with other emerging technologies like AI and machine learning algorithms that have been proven to be truly revolutionary for the finance sector.

Digital technology in terms of financial services has come so far, customer service chatbots, expenditure tracking, and online budgeting tools are to name some.

Final Thoughts

Digital transformation is very exciting as well as necessary for businesses across the entire finance industry. For traditional or new players, they must embrace what is coming and involve them in practice as soon as possible.

But what is a challenge here is that the finance sector is completely structured with traditional architecture. So, it will need a transformation but in a very careful manner with an efficient operational strategy.

Competition is also very fierce in the industry that the companies need to execute these technologies in their marketing and advertising too. This will help the finance companies stand apart from the crowd and keep their customer in the loop every time.