15 Things you need to ask for your Digital Banking Solution

Digital Banking is a hot topic these days, many banks and IT companies are working towards the Next Gen digital banking solutions.  Here are some questions that need to be asked while deciding on the digital banking solution.

Real time: Does the data flow into the different systems on real time basis? If a customer makes logs into the channel and makes a payment to the same Bank credit card, does the payment reflect when he is inquiring on the card? If he calls customer care are the same details available in the executive’s system?

Social Media: Banks are already active for leveraging social media for customer service and sales. But does the system allow the user to transact/ view his account details on Facebook? Some innovative products are also been introduced wherein customer sets a financial goal and then through Facebook asks his friends to contribute towards the goal. The challenge however remains on how seamlessly the contribution can be made.

Active Marketing:  A customer closes his loan and then can the system calculate his new eligibility and prompt him for another loan and then if customer expresses interest does it lead to a loan application.

Level of Customization: Does the system let the customer choose what he sees once he logs in to the application? Can he select his own theme and layouts? A college student will like a different layout and his quick links would be respect to P2P transfers as compared to a mid-age working person whose quick links could be with respect to Bill payments, Personal financial management etc. The user should be able to set this by just selecting a pre-defined profile.

Does the channel allow the user to set that up type of alerts and the periodicity of alerts as per his choice?

Smart app for Smart phones: The mobile banking app should leverage on the features available in today’s smartphones. Is it possible to add features based on location (Geo Location)? Is it possible to have Photo banking which would enable him to take photos of the bill and initiate payment without entering the details of the bill? Is there any support to make payments through NFC?

Document Upload: Documents need to be submitted by the customer (for new product/KYC documents); can the user upload documents through the channel instead of having to mail them or visit the branch?

Support Continuity of Transactions: Is there any support for continuity of transactions across channels i.e. Initiate a request at one channel and complete the transaction at another channel.  A customer takes a photo of the cheque through his mobile app and then while depositing the cheque at an ATM/Branch he is not asked to enter the cheque details.

My Inquiries: Can the customer filter his queries based on his set of attributes. For instance a customer wants to view all payments done to a particular utility company for the last 3 months.

Workflow: Can a user initiate a task and have it assigned to another associated user for completion. (This could be found more relevant for business banking)

Second screen: Can specific data be transferred to a television? Can the customer view his balances, upcoming bill payments when he switches on the TV?

Natural Language Processing: Is the channel capable of processing requests in natural language. E.g. A small text box is provided wherein the customer just types “Display all transactions done for amount greater than 100 dollars” and he can then view the results on his device.

Context help: How is the customer assisted in performing transactions? A customer setting up a standing order (recurring payment) needs help then instead of the customer looking for the information in the FAQ /Help section, the system displays the relevant instructions at the same page.

Active Personal Financial Management: Does the user always have to open up the page and analysis his position.  For instance does the system alert the user if the expected outflow is more than the expected inflow for the current month?

Non Internet based access: Internet penetration is still a challenge in many countries. How does the bank plan to include customers who do not have access to internet in its digital banking strategy?  Will this be limited to USSD and SMS Banking?

Wearable technology: Wearable technology seems to have a huge potential, Business Insider estimates around 2 billion the current number of devices enabled for the Internet of Things, and expects this to exceed 9 billion by 2018, more than all the world’s PCs, tablets and mobile devices put together. The primary question is how many use cases does the bank have for this that do not cause any regulatory issues and privacy concerns? Yes, this is definitely going to be an interesting area to watch out for.

What do you think are the other things to watch out for?