• Xavier Marcillac, VP Sales APAC at Strands


• 08.02.2017 01:00 pm
Fintech

In the first and second series of reflections on Forrester predictions for Fintech, we covered 6 significant trends that are projected to impact the banking sector in 2017. In this final installment of our mini-series we're going to touch on 3 concluding areas of the digital banking transformation in 2017. Hope you enjoy reading!

Prediction #7: Leading companies will aggressively embrace design thinking

To stay relevant in their customer's life, banks will need to design new human-centred experiences, understanding the challenges that customers face and constantly communicating with customers to find the right solution. Design thinking is going mainstream.

Prediction #8: Companies will operationalize and measure emotion to drive loyalty

How can technology capture and measure emotion? This is a real challenge that goes beyond 2017, because there is much more to a positive or negative consumer experience in banking than the success of a transaction or the UI of the mobile banking app.

For money matters, it is important to instill emotion into PFM for better performance, applying behavioral economics and designing delightful experiences. By the way, aren’t emojis a shortcut expression of an emotion? Messaging apps understood this long ago and popularized them to drive loyalty. Again the conversation game is connected to emotion.

Prediction #9: Gamification will enrich enterprise digital experiences

Brett King once said, banking is no longer somewhere you go, but something you do. Over the last few years banking trends have changed significantly and are slowly shifting to the next level of user engagement - gamification. PFM (Personal Financial Management) is a good example: PFM in essence needs to be gamified to be more effective, helping customers understand their finances and how they could better spend and save. At Strands we recommend our clients to gamify some of the PFM features we integrate in their online and mobile banking applications.

To recap: Predictions that I hope will happen!

All above mentioned predictions provide a good call to action for banks to thrive in the new competitive landscape and meet their rising customer expectations. Based on these predictions and my own personal thoughts, I can envision the bank of the future at a 5-year horizon along these 3 lines:

• Reengineered banking infrastructure towards higher operational efficiency (digital identity + blockchain + cloud)
• New Financial ecosystems emerging as a result of consolidation/integration of Bank + FinTech + TechFin
• Invisible Banking, embedded in customer life events and moments.

Undoubtedly, fintech in 2017 will be even more thrilling than it was last year.  Do you agree or disagree with any of these predictions? Do you have different predictions of your own?