The triumvirate of competition, technology and customer expectations is changing the nature of the retail banking business. Banks are leveraging technological innovation to adopt more customer centric business operating models.

One of the important elements that customers consider today is convenience and simplicity in their interaction with service providers. Long waiting time and convoluted process to getting their needs fulfilled are no longer accepted. Online and digital service providers have been the vanguards of change, disrupting the status quo and elevating expectations of what can be achieved by simplifying processes and promising and delivering on their anytime and anywhere fulfilment propositions.  Banks are finally coming round to the sea-change in consumer behaviour and are starting to address the real pain-points that consumers have with dealing with them.

From Asian Banker’s research in the last three years, we can see a clear trend in what banks are focusing on in terms of their investment dollars. And that is on digitising the delivery channels, either through the introduction of new mobile banking services, revamping outdated internet banking platforms or rolling out branch innovations. Many of the branches as we see today are bringing digitization of banking products and services into the branches, creating a unified and seamless experience with their other digital channels.

Key highlights of this teleconsultation will be:

• Aligning branch banking with the digital strategy
• The changing role of branches in the midst of digitisation
• Integrating customer-oriented functions with back-office processes
• The challenge in getting a holistic view through omni-channel
• Increasing need for data security and IT risk management