The Banking War is On
Most banks in Canada have been around for a long time. Historically, with high regulatory barriers and complex systems protecting them, they could comfortably sit back and wait for commercial clients to come into a branch, wait in line to request a financial product, and then pay the related monthly fees. The service was branch and not customer centric. This worked well for the banks, and it was just the way business was done for corporate customers.
Over the last few years, the commercial customer experience changed as new electronic channels emerged to facilitate the life of the commercial client and creative solutions were found to deal with regulations. This softened the playing field and provided initial opportunities for fintech. This year, the coronavirus made the branch off limits and basically killed it; everything done in a branch had to be moved online as seamlessly as possible . On top of that, according to Finextra Research, “90% of big corporate banking clients would consider switching to a different financial institution for better service around onboarding, account maintenance, service requests and inquiry handling.” As a result of these circumstances, the battle to attract and retain business customers has moved completely online, and corporate customers are looking at and switching to alternatives in growing numbers. Game on!
Banks are realizing that they urgently need to deliver full corporate financial solutions and provide an easy, relevant, and value-added service to retain or attract their business customers. They need to become true advisors that anticipate their customers’ needs and seamlessly solve their problems, and they need to do so by leveraging meaningful and useful digital experiences.
At the top of the list is making the entire funding process easier and more useful. This includes not just better digital experiences with credit, lending, and operational banking products, but completely understanding clients’ needs and providing relevant, frictionless solutions at the right time and place. On the top of the list is complementary and personalized funding. The challenge is doing this in a way that satisfies regulatory and security requirements, while also being as easy and useful as possible for the business customer. Fintechs are fortunate in that they are born with a digital-first DNA that can be very helpful when injected into banks.
Fundica offers a state-of-the-art, complementary white label funding tool that allows its banking partners to become the complete, online funding champions that corporate banking clients are looking for. It also further enables banks to transform their experience from physical and branch-centric to digital and corporate-customer-centric, ultimately helping them win the banking war! If you’re interested in kickstarting this transformation at your institution, please don’t hesitate to contact me to set up a demo.