Everyone agrees that providing personalized experiences is important. But many companies still struggle with gathering the needed data – both from within the company and from external touchpoints – in order to build a state-of-the-art personalization strategy. But taking a first step toward the larger goal helps get the process started and needn’t be that difficult. “Start simple: take your website or next email campaign and personalize that.”
Bank CIOs are now expected to be nimble, forward-thinking leaders who foster innovation in their organizations. The challenges they must be prepared to address include balancing multiple, competing priorities, finding creative approaches to a persistent talent shortage, and addressing post-Covid expectations around the support of remote and hybrid workers. They must also be a catalyst to help drive the creation of a skilled and agile company by being an innovation leader, domain expert, and effective enterprise resource manager.
Morgan Stanley’s Chief Marketing Officer offers some interesting insights into her job of maintaining and growing the company’s storied brand. Making the point that marketing is both an art and science, she discusses approaches to educating customers of acquired companies on the Morgan Stanley brand and value proposition. Bringing in people with diverse backgrounds is also important in order to inject different thoughts, and raise new issues or concerns. She also speaks to maintaining a fine balance between staying true to the existing voice of the brand and also incorporating new ideas that will build on the company’s qualities.
Are you ready to ‘disappear’ in order to grow your business? Embedded finance is the integration of financial services into the apps, websites, and processes of nonfinancial companies. It is not a new concept (think indirect lending), but it does require a different mindset for participating companies. One of the biggest relates to the question of who owns the financial relationship with the customer. “The future for banks providing embedded finance, which many see as bright, will hinge on more consumers ignoring the banks themselves and concentrating on doing business with their favorite retail brands.”
The ability to access and act on financial data across different institutions presents a tremendous opportunity for both consumers and businesses. For example, account aggregation allows customers to pull all their financial balances and activity into a single view. This helps banks and credit unions create better experiences through a more complete perspective on a customer’s financial picture. This can lead to recommendations to drive smarter financial decisions. It can also help mitigate fraud and risk, in addition to supporting greater financial inclusion.
FedNow, the Federal Reserves’ real-time payments system, is scheduled to go live next year but it may be a while before its benefits are fully realized. The 24×7 instant payment network will benefit both consumers and businesses but is seeing resistance from big banks seeking to defend their profitable payments systems. It is also facing a ‘last mile’ problem in terms of a lack of connectivity to POS devices and other payment tools.
