The COVID-19 pandemic is undoubted, one of the most serious challenges faced by the Banking industry. In fact, some experts even consider that the COVID crisis is larger than the global financial crisis of 2008. This has made it challenging for the banking industry to manage daily operations, customer expectations, and finding the right strategies and actions to recalibrate for the future. Moreover, with the adoption of digital transformation and many industries going digital, the adoption of digital tools in banking post-COVID-19 is inevitable. Because with the right digital tools and strategies, the banking industry could moderate the economic damage that is being caused by the coronavirus crisis and can even lay a foundation for a more profitable future with the help of these digital tools and technologies. So, how will the banking industry evolve to survive the digital world? Here are a few ways in which the adoption of digital tools could help the Banking industry post-COVID-19.
Cloud adoption
The banking industry in the future is projected to look very different from what we see today. The banking industry has to deal with increasing customer expectations, ever-evolving technologies, and the emergence of new business models in the digital world post-COVID-19. To ensure continued viability in this new competitive and digitally advanced landscape, banks have to rely on cloud technologies. With the customers encouraging digital transformation, soon, all the banks must have to migrate their current applications to the cloud and make sure they are secure and accessible to consumers via multiple platforms. All this can be achieved with cloud adoption. It also brings in more efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and also gives banks the ability to respond quickly to the changing market as they can scale their operations according to their needs.
Digital workspace
According to a Gartner CFO Survey (https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2020-04-03-gartner-cfo-surey-reveals-74-percent-of-organizations-to-shift-some-employees-to-remote-work-permanently2), 74% of CFOs intend to shift at least 5% of employees to remote work permanently. Currently, the banking industry has already taken several actions to curb the spread of COVID-19 like suspending large-scale gatherings, establishing a central task force, segregating teams, making arrangements for remote working, and refreshing external-vendor-interaction policies. Moreover, with employees multitasking at a much greater level, logging into several applications on multiple devices, and handling additional tasks that come with respect to work from home, remote working comes with its own set of challenges. There is also another complication of collaboration between employees and a huge complication of delay in data transmission. This affects the work experience as well as productivity. This is why banks need comprehensive digital workplace planning to support these initiatives. Innovators like Intone Networks help the banking industry enable sharing, management, communication, collaboration, governance, and controls to achieve higher overall business performance with their digital workplace planning services.
Internet of Things
One inevitable thing we have all faced in banks or any other financial institution is waiting in long queues. But in the post-COVID world, customers would expect more precautions and streamlined methods by the bank to accommodate customers visiting the bank. This is where IoT comes in. By incorporating IoT and Artificial Intelligence into operational infrastructure, the banking industry can deliver excellent customer support and bring more efficiency in operations. For example, Smartphones can act as beacons by notifying account managers in banks when a customer arrives in their branch. Banks can also enable smart IoT devices to send personalized messages to customers as they arrive. In addition to this, coupling the customer’s smartphone with a smart IoT device can schedule their meeting with the executive and then notifies them when it’s their turn. IoT device coupled with smartphones can also give real-time feedback about the status of the meeting. This feature is extremely useful for banks to streamline their daily functions.
Cybersecurity
The impact of coronavirus in the banking industry is large. It is accelerating the digital transformation and completely changing consumer behaviour, accelerating digitalization, and usage of electronic payment methods, internet banking, and mobile banking. Banks are also hiring temporary support staff to support the high volume of service calls and they would need to ensure they do not violate data privacy, customer data-sharing agreements, etc. But as employees and consumers adapt to this new digital environment, they also bring in a new set of issues like the inevitable risk of increased cyberattacks and fraud. According to the third global threat report by VMware Carbon, there is an enormous spike in cyberattacks like phishing attacks, Malspams, and ransomware attacks during the coronavirus period. This study also found that 85% of chief information officers (CIOs), chief technology officers (CTOs), and chief information security officers (CISOs) felt that their workforce had not been properly equipped to work from home, with 28% citing “severe and significant gaps” in the security. This is why it is important to protect the banking industry’s entire value chain from the inside out. Global cybersecurity leaders like Intone Networks work with banks to deliver a risk-based, focused security strategy that delivers the best defence system that helps them face this digital future.
The COVID-19 crisis is accelerating the consumer trend towards technology adoption and reliance. This scenario is likely to continue in the post-pandemic world as the digital transformation will be an even bigger imperative for the banking industry in the future. Enhanced security, improved customer service, and business agility and efficiency would be the focus of the banking industry in the upcoming days. The above-listed technologies will play a huge role in the banking industry providing more flexible and agile business models for growing needs in this digital world. Thus, only the financial institutions that adopt digital tools and technologies post COVID-19 will survive and stay ahead in the digital world.