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Resilient technology is the most important factor for successful online banking services

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By James McCarthy, Director of Solutions Engineering, NS1

 

More than 90 percent of people in the UK use online banking, according to Statista and of these, over a quarter have opened an account with a digital-only bank. It makes sense. Digital services, along with security, are critical features that consumers now expect from their banks as a way to support their busy on-the-go lifestyles.

The frequency of cash transactions is dropping as contactless and card payments rise and the key to this is convenience. It is faster and easier for customers to use digitally-enabled services than traditional over-the-counter facilities, cheques, and cash. The Covid pandemic, which encouraged people to abandon cash, only accelerated a trend that was already picking up speed in the UK.

But as bank branches close—4865 by April of 2022 and a further 226 scheduled to close by the end of the year, Which research found—banks are under pressure to ensure their online and mobile services are always available. Not only does this keep customers satisfied and loyal, but it is also vital for compliance and regulatory purposes.

James McCarthy

Unfortunately, their ability to keep services online is often compromised. In June and July of this year alone, major banks including Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds, TSB, Nationwide, Santander, Nationwide, and Monzo, at various times, locked customers out of their accounts due to outages, leaving them unable to access their mobile banking apps, transfer funds, or view their balances. According to The Mirror, Downdetector,  a website which tracks outages, showed over 1500 service failures were reported in one day as a result of problems at NatWest.

These incidents do not go unnoticed. Customers are quick to amplify their criticism on social media, drawing negative attention for the bank involved, and eroding not just consumer trust, but the trust of other stakeholders in the business. Trading banks leave themselves open to significant losses in transactions if their systems go down due to an outage, even for a few seconds.

There are a multitude of reasons for banking services to fail. The majority of internet-based banking outages occur because the bank’s own internal systems fail. This can be as a result of transferring customer data from legacy platforms which might involve switching off parts of the network. It can also be because they rely on cloud providers to deliver their services and the provider experiences an outage. The Bank of England has said that a quarter of major banks and a third of payment activity is hosted on the public cloud.

There are, however, steps that banks and other financial institutions can take to prevent outages and ensure as close to 100% uptime as possible for banking services.

Building resiliency strategies

If we assume that outages are inevitable, which all banks should, the best solution to managing risk is to embrace infrastructure resiliency strategies. One method is to adopt a multi-cloud and multi-CDN (content delivery platform) approach, which means utilising services from a variety of providers. This will ensure that if one fails, another one can be deployed, eliminating the single point-of-failure that renders systems and services out of action. If the financial institution uses a secondary provider—such as when international banking services are being provided across multiple locations—the agreement must include an assurance that the bank’s applications will operate if the primary provider goes down.

This process of building resiliency in layers, is further strengthened if banks have observability of application delivery performance, and it is beneficial for them to invest in tools that allow them to quickly transfer from one cloud service provider or CDN if it fails to perform against expectations.

Automating against human error

Banks that are further down the digital transformation route should consider the impact of human error on outage incidents and opt for network automation. This will enable systems to communicate seamlessly, giving banks operational agility and stability across the entire IT environment. They can start with a single network source of truth, which allows automation tools to gather all the data they need to optimise resource usage and puts banks in full control of their networks. In addition it will signal to regulators that the bank is taking its provisioning of infrastructure very seriously.

Dynamic steering 

Despite evidence to the contrary, downtime in banking should never be acceptable, and IT teams can make use of specialist tools that allow them to dynamically steer their online traffic more easily. It is not unusual for a DNS failure (domain name system) to be the root cause of an outage, given its importance in the tech stack, so putting in place a secondary DNS network, or multiple DNS systems with separate infrastructures will allow for rerouting of traffic. Teams will then have the power to establish steering policies and change capacity thresholds, so that an influx of activity, or a resource failure, will not affect the smooth-running of their online services. If they utilise monitoring and observability features, they will have the data they need to make decisions based on the real time experiences of end users and identify repeated issues that can be rectified.

Banks are some way into their transformation journeys, and building reputations based on the digital services that they offer. It is essential that they deploy resilient technology that allows them to scale and deliver, regardless of whether the cloud providers they use experience outages, or an internal human error is made, or the online demands of customers suddenly and simultaneously peak. Modern technology will not only speed up the services they provide, but it will also arm them with the resilience they need to compare favourably in the competition stakes.

Banking

Will ‘Britcoin’ change the way we bank?

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The Treasury and Bank of England recently announced a state-backed digital pound is likely to be launched in the UK later this decade, following the popularity of cryptocurrencies. However, the ‘Britcoin’ will be backed by the central bank, ensuring the digital pound will be much less volatile than its sister, cryptocurrency. Could a digital pound backed by the central bank be the answer to utilising technological developments in the finance system for the better?

Ross Thompson, Accountancy and Finance Lecturer at Arden University, considers what we can expect from ‘Britcoin’, how this will impact consumers, businesses, and the economy, and whether ‘Britcoin’ could be the revolution to restore our confidence in the banking system.

Trust in our financial system hit an all-time low post the 2008 financial crash. Even ten years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers, a survey found 66% of adults in Britain still don’t trust banks to work in the best interests of society.

This means there remains to be apprehension for people to sign up to and use a bank to help manage their money. The UK doesn’t seem to struggle too much in this arena, however, as according to the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), most UK consumers (96%) have a current account from a bank or building society. Regardless, there is still a significant number of adults who do not have a bank account or are what is known as ‘unbanked’.

The lack of trust plays a big part here. More people want better control over their money and to cut out the middleman, hence why cryptocurrencies and blockchain became a tempting option, as it can potentially remove the need for banks for any transactions. However, the volatility of these currencies has been a cause for concern for many investors and regulators.

Blockchain and cryptocurrency are gaining more traction and are becoming more of a viable option for businesses, especially due to talks of regulations coming into fruition. This is especially true with cryptocurrency, with the government announcing crypto assets will be subject to FCA rules in line with the same high standards that other financial promotions such as stocks, shares, and insurance products are held to.

The “Britcoin” aims to solve the issues traditional Bitcoin presents. It would be backed by the central bank, which would ensure its stability and reduce its volatility, making it a more attractive option for investors and providing greater confidence in the stability of the financial system. Britcoin will be as stable as the inherent stability of the British economy and political system. It would also provide an opportunity for the UK to stay at the forefront of technological developments in the finance system – a system in which it can sometimes be slow to react.

One of the key benefits of a digital pound is that it would be much faster and more efficient than traditional banking systems. Transactions could be completed almost instantly, regardless of where the parties involved are located. This would make cross-border transactions much easier and could even help to boost international trade.

The Bank of England’s Governor, Andrew Bailey, stated: “a digital pound would provide a new way to pay, help businesses, maintain trust in money and better protect financial stability”, pointing toward the other advantage of a digital pound. It would offer more security as transactions would be recorded on a distributed ledger, which would make it much more difficult for hackers to tamper with the system. It would also provide greater transparency, as all transactions would be recorded on the ledger and could be easily traced if needed.

However, there are also some potential drawbacks. One concern is that it could lead to a reduction in the use of cash, which could have implications for those who do not have access to digital technologies or who prefer to use cash for privacy reasons. There are also concerns that a digital pound could be used for illicit activities, such as money laundering or terrorism financing. On top of this, more details are required in relation to the levels of personal account privacy; the potential to usher in ‘big brother’ banking systems is a growing a concern regarding state digital currencies.

Around 85 central banks are currently engaged in projects to create digital currencies, according to figures from the Bank for International Settlements. But as it stands, many feel there is probably little need for a digital pound; with a growing amount of people using their debit cards, phones and watches to fulfil the same function, a digital pound is deemed unnecessary. On top of this, many of the public fear that a government digital currency could potentially infringe on their privacy – despite the BoE stating the currency would be subject to rigorous standards of privacy and data protection.

And in countries where a digital currency has already been established, there has been little uptake – widely due to the lack of trust between central banks and citizens. It seems gaining users’ confidence should be the Bank’s first priority. The House of Lords economic affairs committee stated last year that a digital pound would pose “significant risks” such as state surveillance, financial instability as people convert bank deposits to CBDC during periods of economic stress, an increase in central bank power without sufficient scrutiny and could be exploited by hostile states and criminals; it is safe to say that the nation’s ‘Britcoin’ will need to be very well thought out.

It has the potential to revolutionize the finance system, however, and could provide significant benefits to investors and consumers alike. However, the potential risks and drawbacks must be carefully considered before any decision is made to launch such a currency. Having said that, if it is implemented correctly, a digital pound could be a powerful tool for utilising technological developments in the finance system for the better.

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Banking

Why the future is phygital

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By Eric Megret-Dorne, Head of Card Issuance Services and Service Operations at Giesecke + Devrient

 

Digital banking has become increasingly ingrained in people’s everyday lives. Today, 73% of people globally use online banking at least once a month. Traditional bricks-and-mortar banks, which have long relied on the in-person experience with customers, are now having to step up their offering. With new ways of working blurring the work-home boundary, banks must ensure a fast, seamless connection between face-to-face processes and virtual customer experiences.

However, this does not mean that physical and digital banking are in competition with each other. In fact, many continue to use physical bank cards, with 1.12 billion in circulation in 2021, which provides the basis for digital payments and offerings. As a result, the benefits of digitalisation should converge with the comfort of physical touchpoints to create a holistic, “phygital” experience.

The path to phygital

Banks are accelerating their digital transformation strategies to keep up with the fast pace of fintech innovations. To meet the changing needs and preferences of customers, the payment world is leveraging new technologies to create personalised experiences through a range of different channels.

While the digitalisation of banking has been underway for quite some time – particularly for younger generations – events such as the Covid-19 crisis forced banks and customers of all ages to use digital tools and processes to compensate for branch, office, and call centre closures. With branches worldwide typically operating at reduced capacity due to social distancing requirements, consumers embraced online banking to avoid both the virus and potentially long queues.

However, some consumers still enjoy physical touchpoints, meaning a digital-only approach won’t suit everyone.

Striking a balance

It’s all about options – consumers now want to freely switch between traditional and digital channels without being forced into one. But how can banks achieve this phygital balance? One way is to equip physical channels with digital capabilities, so that online tools can augment the physical experience. For example, personalised bank cards with a bespoke design can be activated digitally, offering customers an extra layer of convenience. Having to wait for a new PIN to arrive in the mail is a common bugbear for consumers, so bringing card activation processes into the digital ecosystem will ensure a more seamless experience.

Greater automation in the card issuance and activation process enables the benefits of digital to be integrated into the physical banking experience without being intrusive. For instance, self-service kiosks empower customers to print their own cards, reducing the time between acquisition and card issuance, while still allowing for in-branch expertise if needed.

The personal touch

Phygital strategies also give banks a range of valuable data insights that can help them better serve their customers. This includes data on purchasing behaviours and habits, which can then be utilised to improve banks’ offerings and unify the physical and digital brand experience. Using omnichannel data helps to build a hyperpersonalisation strategy to provide real-time services.

In this way, digital solutions help banks maximise their user experience. Whenever a consumer interact with a bank, it creates data and behaviours. With fragmented databases, legacy systems and real-time data created by interactions with third-party partners through Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), it is not always easy for banks to streamline this data from different sources. By understanding patterns in that data and behaviours, banks can tailor and personalise unique experiences for each and every user.

Where security meets innovation

With big data opportunities abound, banks should be mindful of their consumers’ security concerns. Customers are now demanding much more transparency when it comes to how information is stored and collected. At the same time, they still desire greater personalisation via digital methods. Therefore, any successful phygital strategy requires a robust digital security to ensure customers have the same peace of mind as when they complete physical transactions.

To close the gap between innovation and security, banks should utilise tokenised infrastructure, which ensures the safe provision of payment credentials and securing of customer payments across all touchpoints. This is particularly important as regulations such as PSD2 and SCA demand strong authentication requirements.

The use of a token greatly enhances the consumer experience. For example, it allows for card details to be automatically updated for subscription services upon the expiry of an existing one, avoiding any service disruption.  Multi-factor authentication can also ensure an additional layer of security, as it combines a password with verifiable human biometrics such as fingerprints or facial recognition.

Best of both worlds

Every consumer has unique preferences when it comes to banking. Therefore, banks must evolve by bringing both physical and virtual touchpoints into a ‘phygital’ world. Only a phygital approach can meet the needs of all end users – whether they favour an in-person experience, an online one, or a blend of the two. The holistic data insights, personalisation opportunities, and optimised security ensured at every touchpoint are also critical in building future-ready banks.

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