Article State:

Digital Banking

The Benefits of Modern Technology in Financial Services

07/30/2022
In recent years, consumer expectations have been reset by new and disruptive digital technological advancements in financial services.

In recent years, consumer expectations have been reset by new and disruptive digital technological advancements in financial services. With evolving market demands and a wealth of digital opportunities, your institution must embrace this next generation of banking to compete and stay relevant. If you don’t, the next best thing is readily available to your accountholders – with a recent Salesforce survey finding 76% of customers report it’s easier than ever to take their business elsewhere – switching from brand to brand until they find an experience that meets their expectations. 

With this in mind, it’s critical to your institution’s success that you innovate faster, differentiate strategically, compete successfully, and serve the ever-evolving needs of the people in your community. Without implementing modern technology strategies, the competitive advantage in the financial industry will shift to those who provide the value-added services your accountholders want and expect.

3 Emerging Technological Advancements in Financial Services
When prioritizing, here are the top three modern technology approaches to consider (and why!):

Customization in open banking
The future of banking is open. With modern technology like open banking and APIs (application programming interfaces), banks and credit unions can customize solution offerings that are specific to their accountholder needs. Open APIs create, simplify, and enhance partnership opportunities with strategic third parties while bringing integrated solutions to the market as quickly as possible.

Take our Banno Digital Platform™, for example. Banno™ is an API platform developed from the ground up. Every feature and integration supported by Banno is first established on our own API – laying the groundwork to simplify the implementation and maintenance of features. And, because we’ve opened our API with the Banno Digital ToolkitSM, you have the option to bring in unique solutions and innovations to create an integrated experience as a natural and seamless part of your existing app and brand. This means no more jumping between multiple, disparate solutions to support the accountholder – ultimately expediting the resolution of needs and vastly improving your accountholder experience.

Open banking is expected to alter the banking industry. Without it, you’ll miss opportunities to gain new accountholders and deepen existing relationships through modern technology in financial services.

The power of a modern, cloud-based core
Traditional banking platforms hold you hostage and limit your technology and solution offerings. The real value comes from creating an agile, personalized digital experience with a cloud-based core platform so you can provide customized products unique to the needs of your accountholders, in addition to the personalized service they value.

The private cloud is not the future or even an emerging technology trend in financial services– it’s already here today and will remain a critical tool for banks and credit unions to stay competitive. A recent survey by the American Bankers Association found that 80% of financial institutions are considering migrating to a cloud-based core platform. The benefits you gain from a cloud-based core platform are priceless, especially today. Migrating to the private cloud can improve your operational efficiencies and reduce costs – allowing you to focus on your accountholder experience by eliminating both capital expenditures required for in-house installations and the need for on-staff resources to operate and manage in-house hardware and software. In addition, cloud-based cores grant you access to the latest technology in financial services and a more sophisticated infrastructure and processing environment. Furthermore, in a compliance-focused environment, leveraging the private cloud shifts much of the compliance burden to the provider, while giving you and your accountholders powerful security, disaster recovery, and business continuity resources.

Information security and risk management
Disaster can strike at any time – causing you to lose mission-critical data due to natural disasters, human errors, cyberattacks, hardware failures, power outages, or even pandemics. Is your institution prepared for the unexpected? Luckily, financial technology modernization is in full swing, making it even easier to develop a risk management plan with products and services to safeguard your institution and your accountholders.

Solutions like Centurion Disaster Recovery® support the recovery of your IT infrastructure within hours and result in minimal data loss. This cloud-based solution provides secure data-vaulting, disaster recovery testing for enterprise-wide technology platforms, and recovery of Windows-based core systems, complimentary software, and data assets. With the right technology solutions in place, you can arm your institution with the tools and technology ecosystem you need to protect your institution and accountholders in the event disaster strikes.

Now is the time to position your institution for the future – to attract, engage, serve, and retain accountholders. As technology in financial services is constantly evolving and transforming the way accountholders and businesses operate on a day-to-day basis, it’s important your institution has a technology ecosystem in place that can evolve with you. If your institution doesn’t keep up with modern technological advancements in future financial services, you’ll likely fall behind as more and more banks and credit unions are leading with the accountholder experience and convenience as their top priorities.