Digitization in the Financial Sector: Investment in the Future

Banks and insurers are increasingly becoming fintech companies because their services are rapidly shifting to digital and mobile. Pressured by challenger or neobanks, they are forced to continuously innovate to meet the wants and needs of users. A lot of profit can be made by making processes simpler and faster.

People used to go to the bank for all kinds of things. To deposit money, withdraw money, apply for a loan and you name it. This took a lot of time and services were limited to the bank's opening hours. Digitization makes banks much more flexible. Most transactions now go through an app, and video calling with an advisor in the evenings or on weekends is very common.

Disruptive Developments Force Innovation

Banks are at the forefront of digital innovation, just think of Tikkie's success. In addition, there are other stormy developments going on such as:

• The rise of e-payment, e-wallets, contactless payments and cryptocurrency;
• New challengers: 100 percent digital banks such as Revolut and Mozo that offer apps with all kinds of bells and whistles, such as a 'robo-advisor' for investing or a digital household book.
• The increasing number of parties without a banking license that offer financial services (think of Facebook and Google).

Everything revolves around the smartphone, ease of use and customer satisfaction.

Digital Transformation and Automation is Accelerating

Meanwhile, many financial institutions still cling to existing IT systems that are on-premise because they still contain a lot of valuable information and do what they have to do. Nevertheless, the development of new, personalized services requires adaptation of the backend and use of new services from the cloud.

Digitization offers financial service providers, among other things, the opportunity to get started with Artificial Intelligence. Collecting and analyzing customer data and feedback helps, among other things, to improve services and make better decisions (based on data).

There are also many benefits to be gained from automating processes. Applying for credit or a mortgage requires many documents to be checked and processed. Pay slips, copies of identity documents, an employer's statement and you name it. If customers offer them at home via a portal and the approval is then quickly returned digitally, this increases customer satisfaction and loyalty.

EDI and Data Integration: Less Paper, More and Better Insights

A proven effective way to quickly and accurately exchange and track documents is EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) via a Data Integration/EDI platform. A technology that allows systems to talk to each other regardless of the language they use to process or store documents. Electronic messaging (between employees, between employees and customers or suppliers) largely takes place without human intervention. Less paperwork saves a lot of time and results in significantly fewer (typing) errors.

Safe and Compliant Data Sharing

The use of a Data Integration platform is also an excellent way to collect, combine and analyze data from old and new systems. In this way patterns become visible, in which direction is the market moving? The correct customer information is also available more quickly, work processes run faster and the development time for new digital services is significantly reduced. Now that cyber threats are also increasing due to increasing digitization, it is good to know that providers consider security and compliance of paramount importance. They have all the experience, know-how and latest technology needed to ensure that everything related to access to data and data sharing meets the strictest guidelines.

Do you also want to invest in your future? Then contact us today to find out how.