In the era of “Digital”, banking and financial services are undergoing a massive evolution. Technological advancements, new regulatory policies and changing customer expectations are altering conventional systems of handling ‘finance’. The rise of fintech companies, internet banking, and mobile banking are helping to create a cashless society. With the rapid growth of digital technology, it has become imperative for banking and financial services companies to innovate digital solutions and stay competitive.
Technology drives banking:
Modern trends in banking like IMPS (Immediate Payment Service), RTGS (Real Time Gross Settlement), NEFT (National Electronic Funds Transfer), Online Banking, and Telebanking make banking easier, simpler, paperless, signatureless and branchless. They help create “anywhere and anytime banking,” reduce cost of various banking procedures, improve revenue generation, and decrease human error while increasing customer satisfaction.
Mobile banking has taken over the traditional banking systems like never before. Future trends hint at the acquisition of IoT and Voice-Enabled Payment Services becoming a reality. Likewise, UPI or Unified Payments Interface has changed the way payments are made. It is a real-time payment system that enables instant inter-bank transactions with the use of a mobile platform.
Blockchain is the new kid on the block and the latest buzzword. NITI Aayog is creating IndiaChain, India’s largest blockchain network, which is expected to reduce the chances of fraud, enhance transparency, speed up the transaction process, lower human intervention and create an un-hackable database.
Several private and nationalized banks in India are considering technologies like chatbots for assistance in customer support services, and biometric authentication systems to create a highly-secure database protecting it from leaks and hackers attempts. Wearable smart technology is anticipated to be the future of retail banking as well.
Meanwhile, fintech companies and fintech apps have enabled easy access to financial services, led to a massive improvement in customer experience, and reduced the costs. According to a report by NASSCOM, the fintech services market in India is expected to grow by 1.7 times into an $8 billion market by 2020.
With the entire banking and financial services industry jumping to digital channels, digital-only banks have emerged attractive to the customers because of their cost-effective operating models. These banks suit the customer needs because they alleviate the need of visiting the bank and standing in a queue.
Cisco helps create digital banks:
We at Cisco understand change and believe that use of cloud-based technology in banking will improve flexibility and scalability, increase service efficiency, and improve data security. In addition, banks will not have to invest in expensive hardware and software as updating the information is easier on cloud-based models. Likewise, as financial services companies realize customers want faster responses and personalized care, Cisco collaboration solutions that incorporate AI and cloud analytics, help customers get better answers faster and agents be more productive. Conferencing tools like Webex simplify collaboration with clients and co-workers and enable face-to-face interactions with customers, business partners, and colleagues thus improving the overall banking experience.
In order for banks to increase customer engagement, empower their workforce, and improve operations, Cisco’s intent-based networking is a great option because it offers deep visibility and contextual insights so that banks are always on top of customer expectations, service levels, and cybercrime. The network collects and analyses data, presenting it in a way that helps improve branch services, IT, customer experiences, and employee productivity.
Solutions like Cisco Software-Defined Access (SD-Access) give banks a single network fabric, from the edge to the cloud. Banks can set policy-based automation for users, devices, and things and provide access to any application, without compromising on security while gaining awareness of what is hitting the network. With automatic segmentation of users, devices, and applications, banks can deploy and secure services faster.
As financial services firms move towards digitization and adopt new ways of supporting customer interactions, the attack “surface” grows in size, and professional hackers are rapidly adopting new forms of attacks. Financial services firms need a robust security system so to improve risk management and satisfy compliance requirements. Cisco’s suite of security solutions helps reduce threats and protect integrity/availability of financial business processes and data, which are critical to the successful digital transformation of banks.
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