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COVID-19

Banking Technology Vision 2020

September 4, 2020

RESEARCH REPORT

In brief

  • COVID-19 has made digital transformation more urgent. Opportunities and threats banks expected to have years to prepare for are fast approaching.
  • In this rush to accelerate, it is critical that banks think long-term—about the need to innovate, reinvent and redefine themselves.
  • Those that have a shared-success mindset will create new opportunities for growth in a way that benefits all.

Driving value and values during COVID-19

Every year our Technology Vision report looks at the enterprise landscape to identify the emerging technology trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries.

When the research for our 2020 report was in the field, COVID-19 was not yet a global pandemic. Now, everything has changed. COVID-19 is the greatest challenge the world has faced in decades. It has transformed people’s lives at unprecedented scale, impacted every industry and co-opted banks’ ambitions for growth and innovation.

The novel coronavirus has made its impact felt on banks’ revenues and profits, on the behavior of their customers and through heavier demands on their technology infrastructure. But it has not slowed innovation in banking; it’s amplifying it to historic levels. And the trends our research identified have taken on a new urgency. The question for banks is: How fast can you act?

79%

of banking executives agree there is a need to dramatically reengineer the experiences that bring technology and people together in a more human-centric way

17%

of banking executives report that AI is woven into the fabric of their organization

2020 tech trends

COVID-19 has made digital transformation more relevant and urgent than before. Opportunities that banks expected to have years to prepare for are quickly approaching and previously slow-growing pain points are being pushed to the surface. To meet these challenges, banks are having to innovate, reinvent and redefine themselves.

We looked at Technology Vision through a banking-focused lens and found four key trends shaping the post-COVID future:

The I in experience: choosing your own adventure

As people demand more ownership of their digital lives, banks must find ways to allow them to interact on their own terms and make them co-creators of their experiences. Those that do will find more active, engaged and loyal customers.

AI and me: business where AI and humans cooperate

Banks have successfully adopted AI tools and practices that speed up the automation of basic tasks in existing workflows. But to use AI simply to make processes and functions run faster and cheaper is to limit its impact. Tomorrow’s leaders are thinking about how they can scale their deployments as well as using AI as a collaboration tool.

Post-COVID CX: a connected customer experience

COVID-19 has caused banks to create compelling experiences that span all the touch points in the customer journey. As they rush to update mobile apps, websites and other channels to expand functionality, they must ensure the experience remains consistent, empathetic and relevant—and can evolve in step with customers’ constantly changing needs.

Innovation DNA: engines for perpetual innovation

As the world changes rapidly, yesterday’s expectations for innovation are out the window. Many of the reasons banks might have played it safe—failing to see the demand for change or being risk-averse—have become irrelevant. Leaders will create new innovation strategies and form new partnerships to pivot quickly and continuously during this crisis.

Is your bank ready for the post-COVID world?

As banks emerge from the pandemic, the success of the next generation of products and services will rest on their ability to elevate the human experience. Those that have a shared-success mindset—and invite collaboration with customers, employees, ecosystem partners, governments and the public—will create new opportunities for growth in a way that benefits all.

We have developed a diagnostic tool that analyzes the status of an organization’s return on technology investment and identifies the areas where remedial action would have the greatest and most immediate positive effect. We would welcome the opportunity to share with you our perspectives on technology investment and to conduct a Future Systems diagnosis.

Let’s talk about it.

The long-term challenge is setting banks up to successfully rebuild and recover when the worst of the pandemic is over.

Contact us

Michael Abbott

Senior Managing Director – Global Banking Lead
LinkedIn

Francesca Caminiti

Director – Accenture Research, Financial Services, Global
LinkedIn

Schira Lillis

Director – Global Financial Services Research Lead
LinkedIn

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