• Sven Lindemann, CEO at Serrala


• 22.10.2018 08:15 am
undisclosed

Today, banks are facing many challenges, not just high fees and lack of transparency, but competition from emerging fintech companies who are entering the market with modern applications and innovative solutions. With the industry going through a digital transformation, it’s crucial for banks to be more agile with their corporate payments solutions or risk being disrupted. Now more than ever, banks are under increased pressure to keep up, reduce costs and streamline the management of inbound and outbound payments for their corporate customers— all while looking for new and additional revenue streams. To avoid losing valuable corporate customers to emerging fintech companies, there is an immediate need for banks to assert and strengthen their position in the market.

According to Visa’s annual Digital Payments study, the survey showed that millennials – young adults aged 18-34 – are driving mobile commerce behaviors, whether that’s shopping, sending money to friends or family, or doing everyday activities such as paying bills.  In fact, Venmo, a company that was founded less than a decade ago, handled $12 billion in transactions in the first quarter of 2018 alone.  The rise of digital payments is expected to hit 726 billion by 2020— let that sink in. The problem? The industry has only just started deployment and banks are scrambling to find technology solutions that will meet demand and stay relevant.

With banks now looking for new and additional revenue streams, they are turning to new solutions such as blockchain— which is projected to own 10 percent of global GDP by the year 2027. But banks need to walk before they can run. To simplify and streamline the management of inbound and outbound payments, many banks are turning to managed services and next generation cloud-enabled solutions— with many adopting flexible and secure solutions they can offer to their corporate customers. Banks are ultimately looking for one centralized payment solution or one single payment hub in the cloud—offering significant benefits to their corporate customers.

Cloud solutions offer great opportunities for corporate customers:

• No on-premise installation and instant utilization 
• No large customer onboarding projects, with instant-on functionality 
• Professional processes for security, backup and archiving 
• Ability to expand other services such as reporting, and product upsell through cloud services

The right cloud-based software helps banks develop, host, maintain and update solutions automatically, so they can provide their customers with better banking solutions, faster than the competition, solidifying their role as a trusted service provider and ensuring higher customer retention rates.

The cloud is the future and will empower banks along their road to digital transformation with solutions that help them meet the needs of their valuable corporate banking customers. With a cloud-enabled solution, banks can focus on serving their customers, helping them prevent payment fraud, meet the latest global payment and compliance requirements, and succeed in an increasingly fast-moving, global business environment.