The digitalization race: Can financial service providers hack the pace? Third European Retail Banking Survey – Findings and recommendations
Contents
1. Five key findings of the third European Retail Banking Survey
Digital maturity in banking is increasing
But the industry is still far from catching up with the digital frontrunners ......5
The customer interface is getting crowded
And there is not enough room for all banks to capture the interface ......8
The FinTech hype is over
A pragmatic relationship has emerged between banks and FinTechs ...... 11
Banks must free themselves of legacy structures
Only then will disruptive innovations become possible ...... 14
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to digital transformation
Banks need to apply different implementation models simultaneously ......17
2. Two recommendations
Clear strategic positioning
Banks can be either relationship expert, product expert or technology provider ......21
Flexible implementation approach
Different models need to be applied in parallel .......23
Management summary
This latest European Retail Banking Survey builds on the work of the previous editions, conducted in 2013 and 2015. At the heart of the third edition stands the question of retail banks' digital maturity, their digital priorities and the approaches they are taking to imple-ment them. Our key question to executives and decision makers was: Can financial service providers keep up with the pace of digitalization?
The 60 respondents who took part in our online ques-tionnaire come from ten countries, work across all areas of the retail banking sector and represent banks of all different sizes.
We have summarized the study's most important find-ings in five key statements. Among the insights we pres-ent is the fact that retail banks are not keeping up with the pace of digitalization when it comes to adapting dis-ruptive technologies and grasping new business models. They are indeed working on digitalizing their existing business models, but they are not moving fast enough. In fact, they are still a long way off bringing in any "real" innovations. As such, banks are unintentionally leaving it to other players, especially the tech giants and Fin-Techs, to shape the future of retail banking.
Our survey findings can help retail banking decision makers better analyze and assess their digital maturity against the status quo in the industry and among their banking peers and draw the right conclusions for their future business.
We have formulated two recommendations for banks to help them not fall further behind in the digitalization race and to enable them to catch up as soon as possible. Crucial steps in the successful digital transformation of retail banks will be for them to adopt a targeted strate-gic positioning and to apply the right implementation models that enable disruptive innovation.