Banking’s Secret Sauce: Innovation, Solid Customer Experience

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — “The best way to predict your future is to create it.”

Financiers will have to heed that advice if they want to grow despite challenging regulatory and competitive environments, said a panel of executives discussing the future of banking at the Consumer Bankers Association conference last month. Banks of the future will be marked by innovative products, optimal usage of collected data, and an unparalleled customer experience.

“One of finance’s dirty words right now is ‘innovation,’” said panelist Andrew Freeman, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Banking Solutions. Banks will differentiate themselves from the pack by offering “product innovation that really helps consumers,” he added.

For instance, financial institutions that cater to the “unbanked” and “underbanked” populations would fill a critical niche, said Steve Qualkinbush, principal at New Channels Realty LLC.

Innovative product development will stem from effective piggybacking on customer information. At present, though, many banks are overwhelmed with “unusable” data. In fact, a poll of the session’s 600 or so attendees found that 60% felt they have “a long way to go” in making their data usable to optimize customer relationships. Another 37% deemed their data “as good as the competition, but not great.”

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