• Jürg Truniger, Product Marketing Lead at Appway


• 22.05.2017 10:00 am
Banking , Digitalization

Last year, BBVA Executive Chairman, Francisco González, declared that “improving productivity is the biggest challenge that companies face today.”

This challenge isn’t just being noticed by those in senior banking positions.

In Gartner’s report, 2017 CIO Agenda: A Financial Services Perspective (February 2017), David Furlonger states that "From the 2016 Gartner CEO Survey, 77% of CEOs indicated the critical need for productivity improvements as a means of improving performance over the next two years.”

So what does this mean for banks?

It means that productivity is still a major problem, despite huge investments being made in technology to improve efficiency. Messaging and collaboration platforms have evolved; the mobility revolution is fully underway; machines are undeniably becoming smarter. Yet productivity can still be greatly enhanced.

While it’s every CIO’s goal to equip their knowledge workers with the right tools to work smarter and focus on activities that generate value, most are still spending far too much time dealing with administrative tasks. These tasks kill motivation and take away valuable time from other important responsibilities. Plus, employees usually don’t perform these tasks in isolation, meaning that other employees who are equally overloaded must also be involved, especially in regulated industries such as banking.

To Buy or Not to Buy? That is the Question.

Software capabilities, like the ones from Business Process Management or Case Management Suites, have managed to decrease time spent on administrative tasks and are key elements of a modern digital business platform (https://www.appway.com/screen/AppwayPlatform). The question is, however, should banks fully make their own customized solution or buy a configurable service for certain activities?

If a bank decides to take advantage of third-party services, then it needs to seamlessly integrate with the external providers. If a bank doesn’t ensure that the purchased solution is impeccably implemented, then the solution will only be window-dressing from a cost perspective.

For example, a bank that wants to onboard a High Net Worth Individual (HNWI) needs to perform several background checks to calculate the risk of having them as a customer. Many service providers specialize in performing such background checks, like KYC review or PEP check. Effective integration means that such a service is applied on both the backend and the frontend, so that knowledge workers intuitively understand how to use the service.

With a smartly integrated solution, our clients can perform background checks in 15 minutes instead of days, which used to be the case before—just one reason to buy.

Other than saving time, an integrated solution has other advantages for knowledge workers. Imagine a relationship manager meeting a HNWI client and not knowing the customer’s risk situation. Such a scenario automatically places restrictions on engagement and can lead to a second-rate assessment as well as a second-rate relationship. If the risk situation is clear, engagement automatically rises.

Gartner’s 2017 CIO Agenda notes that "improvements in customer experience represent the biggest potential impact from digital investments according to 61% of FS CIOs, and only 20% of respondents indicated that digital investments are being made directly in relation to products."

We believe a smartly integrated solution automates processes, enables employees to be more productive and motivated, and leads to an improvement in overall customer experience.

Want to know Gartner’s next steps for financial services CIOs? Download the full report.

To see how Appway can help digitalize your onboarding process, reach out to us and request a live demo.