According to a new report, the large financial institutions are falling behind with the latest tech.
Despite the fact that mobile banking and payments are right at our doorstep and are being used at an increasing rate, in Canada, almost half of all banking execs don’t believe that they have the IT systems, infrastructure, and processes in place to be able to meet present – let alone future – customer needs and expectations over their smartphones.
The report was entitled “Banks: Customers Expect That You’re Always On and Available, Are You Ready?”
The report was made by CenturyLink and it pointed out that even some of the central services still require better IT. It pointed out that when it come to mobile banking and technology, about 40 percent of C-level financial execs who were surveyed didn’t feel that the IT infrastructure was in place for meeting the basic banking service needs to the level of customer expectations. CenturyLink’s managing director of financial services, Roji Oommen, said that “To stay competitive in a technology-driven marketplace, Canadian banks must be both financial institutions and mobile technology innovators.”
While mobile banking may not yet be keeping up with technology, it’s not that the resources aren’t out there.
The hope that CenturyLink certainly has from the insight in this report is that the banks will see that it and companies like it area already offering the types of services that will help those financial institutions to get themselves on the right path. These strategic technology partners do actually have the potential to spot the mobile tech solutions that are needed and to help in their integration – if not implement them on behalf of those Canadian banks.
The report also determined that 78 percent of banking execs in the country felt that customer demand for improved mobile banking and technology based services would cause them to be required to do more outsourcing. It stated that when those execs were asked about what parts of their IT are currently being outsourced, 86 percent said that they did so for IT infrastructure requirements, while another 72 percent said that they were outsourcing for their IT security.
Recently, WeChat invested some $50 million into Canadian messaging app Kik, which highlighted the company’s intentions to begin exploring other markets. While WeChat is showing interest in new markets, it has yet to enter into these markets. As such, there is little consumers interest in the app, even with the demand for new mobile commerce services growing at an exponential rate. In order for WeChat to compete effectively, it will have to take steps to tailor its services to a western audience.