by John Atkinson, Director of Sales Engineering, UK & Ireland, at Riverbed
Traditional banks are lagging behind digital banks in digital offerings and services, is unified observability the gamechanger traditional banks need in order to catch-up?
In this digital age, competition in banking is becoming more and more fierce – banks that were unified are now fractured by ‘which type of bank’ they are, traditional or digital. Traditional banks are established, renowned and have decades, if not centuries, of history in banking. Much like how the Bank of England was founded in 1694. On the other hand, new-age digital banks are digitally native companies, like Revolut and Monzo, that have almost completely adapted to today’s technologically advanced market.
Yes, traditional banks are established, tried-and-true. However, in this digital age they face their toughest challenge to date – adapting to technology. Digitally native companies, like digital banking apps, platforms and FinTech companies have almost completely adapted to today’s market – with consumer demand fuelling the motivation for more tools and services to be offered with a complete digital experience.
Unified observability, for traditional banks, might be the gamechanger here. It’s a tool that saves companies the process of reviewing events, metrics, and data. Along with complete IT infrastructure monitoring, unified observability enables IT teams to glean actionable insights from their data, ensuring a quality digital experience for end-users which ultimately keeps employees happy and productive.
For example, Monzo has an in-app monthly spending budget tool as well as a guide on how to use it. When it comes to providing services, even the small and relatively new digital banking platforms are continuing to outperform their high-street counterparts. While also offering better mobile and online banking services.
Although traditional banks are transitioning more of their services to a digital landscape, they still fall short of competing with digitally native businesses. These companies, who aren’t under the constraints of legacy systems, are attracting customers over traditional banks largely in part due to their innate flexibility, instant and ease of access to money, and well-made budgeting and money-saving tools. It’s no wonder that The Guardian reported that 23 million more people in the UK abandoned coins, moving closer to a cashless society.
A significant reason for the disparity between traditional and digital banks comes from the fact that traditional banks are internally complex and difficult to restructure. Internal innovation at a reasonable pace is difficult for larger, more established institutions and usually have very integrated, very complex systems in place. For these institutions to position themselves properly, they require high-performance capabilities across many geographic locations to deliver a seamless, end-to-end digital experience for customers.
To pursue this goal, banks need to have unified observability across data transactions, networks, applications, and end-users so they can draw upon and provide actionable insights for their business. Unified observability will also aid understaffed and overworked IT teams, enabling a holistic view over their entire ecosystem, who can now resolve issues seamlessly. This translates into directly providing customers seamless digital experiences as well as flexible, streamlined services.
Digitally savvy service offerings
Currently, customers are unable to complete certain actions remotely. This could be depositing money or cheques remotely or digital signing for loans. It’s clear that traditional banks must transition services to be remote in order to meet current, customer demands.
As reported by Deloitte; “younger consumers demonstrated a preference between physical and digital channels, especially services and offerings from digital-only banks and large technology companies”. This is reflected by customer demand for more functions and services to be fully operational over smart devices and laptops, something digitally native businesses do exceptionally well.
As customers demand for more personalised experiences grow, it’s through establishing strong partnerships that traditional banks can deliver superior customer experiences which will help drive brand loyalty and trust. Using the issue of being unable to sign loans digitally, by partnering with DocuSign, for example, banks can enable digital signatures through their mobile apps.
As a result, banks will have a wealth of data and information about end-users which can create helpful services. For instance, banks could look at replacing factual notifications about transactions with updates to customers about their current balances, forecasting on their spending, overspending and money saving recommendations.
A simplified and unified infrastructure
As banks evolve, adding more to their networks and systems will add the risk of falling into the trap of overly implementing features and technology into their infrastructure. This state of overload will cause technological complexity which may lead to a myriad of network and application performance issues – potentially causing new services to struggle unjustly.
Unified observability is what enables IT teams to grasp the conditions of their entire infrastructure. IT teams utilising unified observability can easily see how users have moved throughout their system, identifying opportunities for maximum improvement and service satisfaction. The technology also minimises costs. It does this as it streamlines the troubleshooting process by reducing the mean time to identify a problem, establish its location, resolve the anomaly, and finally verify the solution.
Paving the way for traditional banks to flourish
Digitally native banks may have the head-start in terms of digital transformation and redefining digital customer experience over recent years. This, however, doesn’t mean that traditional banks will always be left behind.
For traditional banks, saving time and money by automating and streamlining processes through unified observability is a win-win. As a result, it’s time for traditional banking institutions to find the right partner, such as Riverbed, who can provide that tech-based oversight, embrace digital transformation throught it’s comprehensive unified observability portfolio. This in turn will not only help traditional banks become more cost-effective and efficient but will also provide them with a competitive edge.
