Data and true artificial intelligence must be merged to best serve members.
If a financial institution gives up on payments, it’s really giving up on the consumer, and its relevance will continue to erode. In short, if consumers are no longer using your financial institution for payments, they’re no longer your customers/members.
If your financial institution decides to create a world-class payments experience, there are two factors to consider: 1) what will the user experience be like, and 2) how will it actually work, i.e., how much technology will it take?
In considering user experience, it’s important to remember that a consumer’s expectations for your financial institution are no longer just based on their experiences with financial institutions. Today, consumer expectations are shaped largely by GAFA (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple), which is just shorthand for all the major e-commerce players collectively.
For example, why do people love Amazon? In a word, it’s easy to do business with Amazon. That’s because, at its core, Amazon is not a retailer; it’s a technology company. Selling merchandise is simply a means to convert that technology into revenue dollars. And because Amazon is a technology company, it leverages technology to create the easiest, most engaging user experience possible. We’ve reached the “do it for me” age, where technology is capable of much more than following simple commands. In the case of payments, it’s about more than just moving money around; it’s about empowering people and simplifying their lives.
For most financial institutions, this represents a fundamental shift in thinking. Consumer relationships have traditionally been built through face-to-face engagement at the branch level. However, today the typical consumer visits a branch only about seven times per year. What’s more, according to CACI, that number is expected to dip to four visits by 2022. As a sub-group, millennials are expected to visit a branch twice a year. That doesn’t leave much opportunity for face-to-face relationship building.
The challenge then is to create an effective, engaging, assistive, advisory, actionable user experience—in other words, a smart payments experience. This whitepaper talks more about how to do this.
A CUES Supplier member, Payrailz™, Glastonbury, Connecticut, offers smart and engaging payment experiences for the financial services industry.
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