Accelerating digital transformation in banking

Digital engagement is key to optimizing the consumer experience

The banking industry is in a digital arms race. In 2018, banks globally plan to invest US$9.7 billion to enhance their digital banking capabilities in the front office alone.₁ For many retail banks, online and mobile channels have become as important—if not more important—than branches and ATMs.

Banks around the world are already realizing how investments in digital technologies could benefit customer acquisition and satisfaction. For example, Bank of America currently receives more deposits from its mobile channel than it does from its branches.₂ The bank’s CEO Brian Moynihan recently stated that investing in digital banking capabilities has helped improve customer satisfaction.₃

But satisfaction is relative. As leading technology brands, such as Apple, Amazon, or Google, have become the gold standard for digital engagement, many consumers now have a stronger emotional connection with these brands than they have with their primary banks, as we will see in the subsequent sections in the report. If banks want to keep up, they have to engineer the digital experience they offer to make these emotional connections, which, ultimately, could translate into sticky interactions and more profitable customers.

The Deloitte Center for Financial Services surveyed 17,100 banking consumers across 17 countries in May 2018 to measure the current state of banks’ digital engagement. We asked respondents how frequently they use different channels and services, with an eye on digital transactions. We also captured consumers’ expectations and perceptions of digital banking capabilities, and the likelihood of using additional digital banking services in the future.

The survey results support Deloitte’s belief that restructuring organizations around different stages of customer interaction will be the next frontier for digital banking. Specifically, this will require integrating digital services across five stages—adoption, consideration, application, onboarding, and servicing—to drive holistic engagement. We believe the results clearly show that banks need to expand their focus beyond increasing and enhancing digital service offerings to transform themselves into truly effective digital organizations.

This study is the latest of a suite of thought leadership efforts by Deloitte that address digital banking, a topic of the utmost importance to the industry’s future (see sidebar, “Digital banking research from Deloitte”).

Of course, banking systems and the behaviors of consumers vary across markets in different geographies. As such, we highlight country differences along the way to offer a perspective of consumers’ relationship with their banking institutions in individual countries. A subsequent report and interactive will dive deeper into these geographic differences and their reasons.

For more read...

1. Daniel Mayo, “Banking ICT spending predictor,” Ovum, February 2, 2018.
2. Taylor Nicole Rogers, “Bank of America finally sees mobile deposits surpass in-person transactions,” The Street, July 16, 2018.
3. Ibid.