The way we interact and surface financial services will change. There is no way back.

Pre-Covid, face-to-face-only banking customers were already becoming the exception. Globally, the share of digital-only and hybrid banking customers jumped from 65% of all customers in 2015 to 88% in 2019, according to Boston Consulting Group.

The arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic underlined the importance of digitalization to banking leaders. But how has their thinking changed? And how much disruption will the new economy-wide drive towards digital bring to the banking industry?

FintechOS, a global provider of technology for the digital transformation of financial services organisations, discussed emerging trends around this topic during a debate it hosted at the FinTECHTalents Virtual / Spring on June 10th.

The panel included Ömer Tetik – CEO of Banca Transilvania, Ricky Knox – CEO of Tandem Bank and serial entrepreneur, and FintechOS’s co-founders, Teodor Blidarus and Sergiu Negut (moderator).

Watch the discussion now:

#1 Digitisation will probably be the number 1 focus in the following years

Ömer Tetik, CEO of Banca Transilvania, one of the largest banks in SEE:

• Nobody could have predicted what has happened in the past two months.
• Despite social distancing, we’ve been able to understand our customers and their expectations better.
• For larger banking groups, it’s difficult to adapt. We have a lot to learn from challenger banks.

Ricky Knox, CEO of Tandem Bank and serial entrepreneur:

• From our business’s perspective, the impact has been good overall.
• The UK was one of the pioneers in regulation to allow new challengers in the market.
• I think the regulators are cautiously behind the challengers.
• The relationship has been productive so far.
• Digitisation will probably be the number 1 focus in the coming years.

Teodor Blidarus, FintechOS, provider of technology for the digital transformation of banks and insurers:

• Our feedback from clients in the banking sector has been that they moved to digital faster than expected.
• The next big step in banking is going to take place in six months from now, when all the delayed payments will be on the market again.
• Banks are pushing a couple of digital services onto customers. The savvy customers like that, but they aren’t all tech savvy.
• The race for digitization is really on. In Asia everything is moving fast.

#2 Customer-centricity will be a must

Ömer Tetik:

• People don’t want to spend time in a queue, waiting for the human touch.
• Most of the changes that we have adopted recently will remain.
• What we do for our customers will change a lot, from personal finances to buying tickets for the museum.
• We should find different ways to reach different customers.
• What will future banking roles look like? Product and services management will remain at the core. These won’t change much, but the channels you reach customers on will.

Ricky Knox:

• Consumers’ priorities will probably shift strongly towards safety.
• The journeys already cost more money but definitely they do require us to deliver our solutions differently from a traditional bank.

Teodor Blidarus:

• We’re leaving the era of talking about products and touchpoints. We’re moving towards a new era of measuring customer journeys.
• We need a customer-centric approach and to change the way we do banking and harvest data.
• There are plenty of technologies to make use of to personalise products and services. But both human and artificial intelligence are needed.

#3 No more “business as usual”

Ömer Tetik:

• The economic crisis is about to come.
• All the scoring models, the rating models are not relevant any more.
• We used to make plans for 18 months, now we are making plans for 18 days.
• I’m not a big fan of the view that banks will become technology companies, but we will have tech partners to provide cheaper and faster solutions.

Ricky Knox:

• Our view is not particularly Covid-driven about what needs to happen in banking.
• When you personalise products and services, you need deep machine learning and to keep things simple.
• The key is to identify your strengths and insource things.

Teodor Blidarus:

• I think the crisis is yet to come.
• The way we interact and find financial services will change. There is no way back.
• We have examples of banks in the CEE that we work with. Some of them built customer journeys that have nothing to do with lending or deposit products. They are merely surfacing telco products, retail and travel products.

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This debate is part of a series of thought leadership pieces on digital transformation. FintechOS has been talking to leading companies from incumbents and start-ups, to accelerators and consultants, to get to the heart of this topic.