Digital Banking is Here to Stay and is a Critical Component to Account Holder Loyalty
In a continuously evolving world filled with growing competition and cutting-edge technology, banks and credit unions must remain flexible and open to innovative new approaches that keep them top-of-mind amidst growing consumer expectations. With changing user behavior, digital banking and remote transacting have become routine for many, making online and digital solutions a top priority for banks and credit unions. In fact, an FIS Consumer Banking Report revealed 72% of all banking interactions are now digital. With adoption this high, institutions must deliver a seamless user experience that matches or exceeds in-branch services through targeted campaigns, messages, and personalized insights.
Having worked for several institutions of various sizes, I have seen the importance of offering simple and intuitive digital experiences that speak to users’ financial stories. This is key to retaining and attracting account holders. To do this, banks and credit unions must recognize the benefits their digital banking platform offers, and embrace its capabilities as an extension of in-person offerings, such as:
Convenience: The beauty of digital banking is simple: it is always open. Long gone are the days of planning a trip to your local financial institution to deposit a check, check your account balance or pay a bill. Digital banking allows customers and members to bank wherever and however they want.
Financial Wellness and Planning: Digital banking provides access to financial wellness features that keep users engaged and loyal to their institution, like creating budget categories, establishing goals for spending habits, and tracking their income and fixed expenses. Through these analytics, users are given insights into their spending habits and trends. Banks and credit unions also benefit with access to user behavior data, helping monitor and create personalized products and services, as well as educational programs.
Security: Digital banking platforms provide account holders with multiple layers of protection to ensure their personal information is secure. A common misconception is that remote banking is risky, but with features like multi-factor authentication, data encryption, and biometric login options, financial institutions are continuously working to deter data security threats and ensure sensitive information is protected.
Real-Time Alerts: Digital banking platforms enable users to receive real-time updates via email or text about their account activity. Alert types vary by financial institution, but some common examples include notifications for low balances, profile changes, and unusual activity on an account. In addition to alerting customers and members of potential fraud or suspicious behavior in real-time, these notifications can also serve as friendly reminders to take action with their finances and planning.
Bill Pay Made Easy: Paying bills through online and digital banking channels allows consumers to eliminate the manual steps of writing physical checks, buying stamps, and organizing piles of papers. With digital options, account holders can enter payments each month or create automatic withdrawals, freeing their minds of due dates and potential late fees.
The importance of a user-friendly, scalable digital banking platform has skyrocketed since the start of the global pandemic. To remain competitive, banks and credit unions must continuously innovate by adding new features and capabilities that establish a complete digital ecosystem of complementary tools and services. Personalization and customization is also important, extending that in-branch level of service to the mobile device or browser.
NXT, Alogent’s unified online, mobile, and digital banking platform, sits at the heart of a financial institution's digital ecosystem and drives a greater lifetime value, lower total cost of ownership for banks and credit unions and delivers a secure, flexible, and customizable unified digital banking platform for consumers and businesses. With a single, SDK-driven platform, modern tech stack, open architecture and robust set of pre-built integrations to third party capabilities, banks and credit unions elevate the user journey and drive engagement by keeping users in-solution.
Learn more about NXT in this eBook.
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