Mobile first
Our physical and digital worlds have converged into our mobile. The device in our pockets has become our first point of contact with the world and banks are among the leading organisations reaping the benefits.
China leads the way here, with 88 per cent of the nation’s millennials dealing with their banks via smartphone. And with $US8.8 billion invested in emerging Chinese fintech companies in 2016 alone, huge growth opportunities await those who get it right.
But Australia isn’t far behind in digital transformation. The latest figures from RFi Group Research show that mobile penetration rates are higher in Australia than in other comparable economies, as 96 per cent of millennials and 91 per cent of the adult population as a whole now have mobile phones.
“Australian major financial institutions are among the top 20 most efficient banks in the world based on cost-to-income ratios,” Scopelliti says. “And according to Forrester Research’s mobile banking functionality index, Australian major banks are also among the top 50 banks in the world.”
Rise of programmable enterprises
With the automation of processes fuelled by artificial intelligence already underway, the concept of self-learning is being extended into the networks that run the show.
Once a business network can work out for itself what it needs to do, efficiency will go through the roof as just the right capacity and configuration needed for growth can be unleashed.
“A programmable network is a new kind of network that can adapt quickly, learn to improve its own performance, and evolve with the organisation,” Scopelliti says.
“It will be a step change in the efficiency, flexibility and speed with which organisations order and manage their network services and infrastructure.”
“Exponential organisations, even at a relatively immature stage, have substantially greater scaling capability than traditional organisations. They become what we describe as programmable enterprises”
Rocky Scopelliti, Global Head of Banking, Finance and Insurance, Telstra
Your own personal assistant
It may not be genuine artificial intelligence yet, but automated chatbots are now so good that they can conduct real-time online conversations in such a way that it personalises our digital lifestyles – with the convenience of it being in our back pocket.
Scopelliti says customer interaction technologies such as pervasive natural language voice interfaces, intelligent agents and smart chatbots on social messaging platforms provide a way to deliver a personalised and engaging customer experience – and are so cost effective that the scale of potential use is unprecedented.
While some may fear the rise of the machines, businesses are already putting robots (or robotic software) to good use, automating and enabling software to conduct tedious jobs in a flash because they know, ultimately, customer experience matters.
As the scope and capability of these technologies improves, exponentially growing organisations will use pre-programmable intelligence to work through huge amounts of data, to find the patterns, analyse trends and make order out of chaos, remove friction and importantly, improve security.
Discover the latest technology trends impacting the way banking and finance institutions are interacting with their existing customers – and enticing new ones.
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