New consumer profile demands innovative customer support

The finance sector is going through one of those transformation moments, certainly one of the most paradigm shifts in centuries.

Not long ago, it was unimaginable to have access to certain pieces of information in one click, or automate a spending organization through intelligent systems technology, let alone think of using a digital currency or a “wearable” payment device, such as a watch.

These are some of the “demands” of a new highly connected customer profile that has emerged in recent years and, with it, new necessities and new financial management models. To have an idea of the size and depth of this transformation, in 2015 about 95% of all cell phones sold in Brazil were smartphones, according to a recent study by IDC Brazil.

Add to the connected world and all these technologies the phenomenon of “unbanking” and structures simplification. This is how the fintechs – an abbreviation for Financial Technology – arise, a term used to designate those companies – typically startups – that use technology to make financial services more efficient. Fintechs shake the segment because their products and services reduce or even eliminate bureaucracy from the users’ relationship with the money, in the forms of a smart credit card or a “full service” digital bank, without the charges or with very low fees, where the bulk of the interactions and customer touch points are available through a mobile app.

With the help of researches done by the Brazilian Bank Federation (FEBRABAN) and important entities of the sector, we have listed five trends that promise to directly and with great intensity impact the financial market by 2020.

1 – Middle and back office processes modernization
Financial institutions have made great efforts to improve the way they interact with their customers by investing in new technologies, customer service channels and customer experience. However, there is still a pending “homework” aiming for operational efficiency, cost and productivity gains.
The middle and back office processes modernization is essential to support the evolution of the front office, which will have in digital channels its flagship. For this to happen, technologies related to Asset Management, BPM and ABPD Solutions, EIM, Dashboards and IOBVDs are essential.

2 – Customer Experience

The user experience has become indispensable to any business in the new economy. Customer Experience, in short, consists of understanding in depth the customer profile and the entire brand interaction cycle, in an end to end journey.

This concept can be leveraged in businesses that interact with their customers through technological means, thanks to the possibility of measuring and analyzing the steps taken by the consumer, either when accessing an insurance quote site, a POS or a mobile application.

Technologies such as Smart Devices, which includes wearable and connected devices (IoT), Data Intelligence – Big Data and Analytics, and connectivity to social media and apps – especially messaging – will be on the rise.

3 – Digital Channels

If we look only from the banks’ point of view, digital media transactions already outperform traditional media transactions (50% versus 31%, respectively, in 2014, according to FEBRABAN data). However, these numbers are expandable to the entire segment.

New technologies have emerged, allowing costs reduction and significant progress in transactions availability and speed. Part of this is due to the adoption of Cloud Computing solutions, virtualization (of servers, for example) and “as a Service” solutions, which have gained confidence and scale thanks to an internet with greater capillarity and quality, better devices, websites, and applications.

This rapid adoption of digital media should further leverage investments in new technology usage interfaces and formats, agile methodologies, and tools that accelerate development.

4 – Payment Methods

The payment industry, although still part of the financial services scope, has its own actors: brands, acquirers, processors and, more recently, non-banking institutions – such as telecommunications and information technology companies – and niche companies.

The mobile payment massification should further strengthen this industry and with this, new technologies involving efficient management of infrastructure and networks supported by dashboards and IOBVDs become essential.

5 – Cognitive Computing

Cognitive computing has the potential to promote a significant change by taking a more definite shape in recent years – and, why not, more positive than what was portrayed by past movie franchises such as “The Terminator” and its Skynet.

As use cases emerge and access to cognitive computing technologies becomes more and more of an everyday routine thanks to the intelligent personal assistants already present in most smartphones available on the market, corporately, IBM Watson emerges as the leading platform in this area.

Analytics technologies, allied to cognitive computing and advancement in voice recognition and interpretation in conjunction with personal assistants, should gain visibility and space in the evolutionary technology roadmap of financial institutions.

All these trends point to a single path: operations need to become more intelligent to ensure their efficiency and profitability.