How the banking and financial services industries have turned digital

With your neighborhood banking branch essentially turning into another app on your mobile phone, most banking functions have been transformed and simplified by the transition to digital, which was already well underway by the time COVID hit.  

What has been the level of investment in or commitment to digital in the financial sector?

It depends on the bank or financial institution, the demographic of their market and what side of the digital divide they are working on to use marketing technology to fulfill customer requests. 

“Banks and financial services companies are having to reimagine the way they engage with customers and establish an enhanced digital experience,” said Leena Iyar, head of marketing and chief brand officer at Moxtra, a real-time mobile collaboration platform used in the banking and financial services industry. 

Moxtra’s platform, the OneStop Customer Portal, acts as a digital branch to fulfill a variety of banking functions through nearly two dozen applications, including:

• Secure messaging;
• Video and content messaging;
• Virtual data forms;
• Video meetings;
• Digital signature;
• Task management;
• Screen sharing;
• Transactions; and 
• Social connections and communications via popular apps like WhatsApp and WeChat.

Moxtra provides the services, but with their client’s branding. “It is a very granular platform that is designed to work with financial institutions to meet their needs,” said Iyar. “Even our video meeting function is highly customized so clients have the option that only relationship managers can start meetings and schedule times with clients, and those staff rights can be customized for each branch.” 

Is Moxtra’s offering the kind of product banks and financial institutions are in the right mindset to discover?

A new mindset

Just last week Metia Group, a global marketing agency, published a report, “Mindset Matters: Redefining Digital Banking Transformation with a Marketing Mindset.” 

The report surveyed 500 senior financial marketers in Europe and the United States from late April through mid-May. 

While the demand of digital banking was identified and universally agreed upon, putting the marketing resources and personnel behind the experience is still slow to occur as the report found: 

• 38% of institutions said they applied a marketing mindset to digital banking by giving their marketers a full seat at the table in determining their institution-wide transformation;
• 43% of the institutions that applied a marketing mindset said their marketing-led digital transformation initiatives exceeded ROI, compared to only 23% of other institutions; and
• 60% of marketing mindset financial institutions reported having superior digital experiences compared to their competition, as only 35% of other financial institutions stated that claim.

The industry’s demand to use digital tools for onboarding new customers has dramatically shifted to a demand for an omnichannel digital banking experience. 

“The data from our report is very clear,” said Metia Vice President of Insight and Strategy Liz High. “The industry had to make rapid changes, and if you were not investing properly you were not performing well.”

High acknowledges that clients that took the onset of COVID as an opportunity to review and modify their digital platforms that were already lacking may have slowed down their initial service response in the first quarter of 2020 and Q2 2020, but those modifications have led to a smoother experience in Q3 2020. 

“This situation has forced banks and financial institutions to think about their overall experience, and not just a little bit of technology at a time,” said High. “There was a lot of technology investment with little customer benefit, and that is my word of warning, do not throw good money at bad, outdated marketing platforms thinking you will achieve a different result or experience.” 

One-stop banking is number one priority

A personal banker, or relationship manager, that once spent five to seven hours a day in client meetings is not spending that exact same time communicating with clients via text messaging, chat apps, document sharing and more on digital banking platforms. 

“The data-driven, personalized banking experience will be the only experience tolerated sooner than later,” said High. “The paint of it all will be how do you free up the human element of banking to get high emotional engagement in a one-stop banking experience.” 

For Moxtra’s OneStop portal, it acts as an extension of a bank or financial institution’s existing mobile app or website, but can also serve as a standalone web platform or mobile app. To ensure a branded experience on the platform, Moxtra has streamlined their onboarding process to where it only takes a new client two weeks to get up and running on their portal. 

Moxtra’s built-in functionality and expedited processes has allowed for the quick onboarding of new clients, while adding services to existing clients:

• On-premise deployment to private cloud;
• Platform/portal modules that can be toggled on and off for customization;
• Custom communication platforms and apps for wealth management customers.

Beyond the banking sector, Moxtra is attracting the attention of other verticals, such as large corporate insurance brands. 

“We are now seeing different kinds of financial use cases that can be addressed with our portal,” said Iyar. “Whether it is financing cars or financing equipment ti can all be addressed with a one-stop solution that takes the best of marketing technology and puts it in the palm of your hand thanks to your bank or insurance provider.”