In the rapidly evolving landscape of the financial services industry, the orchestration of banking notifications stands out as a game-changer in enhancing customer experiences and operational efficiency.

As banks navigate the complexities of digital transformation, the strategic deployment of notifications across multiple channels has become a crucial element in securing a competitive edge.

Introduction: The Strategic Imperative of Notification Orchestration in the Banking Sector

In today’s digital-first world, the banking sector is under constant pressure to deliver secure and efficient services and personalized and timely communication. Notification orchestration emerges as a critical strategy in this context, enabling banks to communicate with their customers seamlessly across a variety of platforms.

This concerted approach ensures that customers receive relevant, personalized information precisely when needed, transforming how banks engage with their clientele.

Understanding Notification Systems in Banking

Types of Notifications in Banks

The spectrum of notifications used by banks is broad and multifaceted, encompassing everything from transaction alerts and fraud warnings to personalized financial insights and promotional offers.

These notifications serve as vital touchpoints, reinforcing the security and personalization that customers expect from their banking experience.

Evolution of Notification Systems in Banking

The journey from simple SMS alerts to sophisticated, AI-driven notification systems marks a significant evolution in banking communication. Today’s advanced systems leverage data analytics and machine learning to deliver highly personalized messages catering to customers’ preferences and behaviors. This shift enhances customer engagement and is crucial in fraud prevention and financial management.

Among the most common channels that banks use to send notifications to their customers are:

• SMS text messages: this is a direct and immediate way to alert customers to account activities and potential fraud.
• Email notifications: provide a versatile platform for delivering detailed information, from account statements to promotional content.
• Mobile banking apps: they have become a pivotal channel, utilizing push notifications to offer real-time alerts and personalized financial advice.
• Online banking portals complement these by providing notifications within a secure environment when customers access their accounts.
• Automated phone calls or IVR systems are also employed for urgent communications, such as security alerts.
• Other channels: Banks can use other means of communication to send notifications, such as social media, ATM screens, physical mail, in-app messaging, voice assistants, and smart devices.

Together, these channels reflect the modern banking landscape’s shift towards digital, data-driven communication strategies, significantly enhancing customer experience and security.

Challenges Banks Face When Sending Notifications to Customers

Banks face a set of challenges in delivering notifications to their customers. These challenges arise from the varied nature of notifications—ranging from urgent fraud alerts to routine balance updates—the plethora of channels available for communication, customers’ individual preferences, and the overarching concern of cost.

Each element adds complexity to the design and execution of an effective notification orchestration strategy.

1. Diverse Nature of Notifications: Notifications can be urgent, such as fraud alerts, or routine, like balance updates.
2. Multiplicity of Channels: With numerous channels at their disposal, banks must navigate the strengths and limitations of each. The choice of channel can significantly impact the delivery and reception of messages.
3. Customer Saturation and Preferences: In an era of information overload, customers may experience notification fatigue, leading to disengagement. Banks must carefully balance the frequency and relevance of messages to avoid overwhelming their customers.

Additionally, catering to individual preferences for receiving notifications adds another layer of complexity in ensuring customer satisfaction and engagement.

4. Costs: The cost of sending notifications, especially at scale, can be substantial. Different channels carry varying cost implications, with traditional methods like SMS and physical mail being more expensive than digital channels. Banks must consider the cost-effectiveness of their notification strategies, seeking to maximize impact while minimizing expenses.
5. Regulatory Compliance: Ensuring that notification practices comply with local and international regulations adds another layer of complexity.
6. Technological Infrastructure: Implementing a sophisticated notification system that can manage the distribution of various types of messages across multiple channels requires a robust technological infrastructure.
7. Data Security and Privacy: Banks must ensure the highest levels of data security and privacy when sending notifications, especially those containing sensitive information.

Navigating the complex challenges of customer notification requires a strategic, customer-centric approach underpinned by sophisticated technology and an open ear to customer feedback.

By leveraging advanced analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning, banks can tailor their communications to meet individual customer needs, optimizing channel usage to ensure messages are seen and acted upon.

Critical events gateways play a key role in this ecosystem, offering a robust platform for managing the distribution of urgent and sensitive alerts, such as fraud warnings or security breaches, ensuring that such critical information is prioritized and delivered swiftly to protect customer interests.

Strategies for Effective Notification Orchestration

Integrating Multiple Channels

In the age of omnichannel banking, integrating notifications across various platforms is crucial. Whether it’s through SMS, email, mobile apps, or social media, a unified communication strategy ensures that customers receive consistent and coherent messages, irrespective of the channel.

Segmenting Audience for Tailored Notifications

Segmentation is key to delivering notifications that resonate with different customer groups’ unique needs and preferences. By analyzing customer data, banks can tailor their messages, ensuring that each notification adds value to the recipient’s banking experience.

Balancing Frequency and Relevance

Striking the right balance between the frequency of notifications and their relevance is vital. Overcommunication can lead to notification fatigue, while undercommunication may leave customers feeling disconnected. The goal is to engage customers with timely and meaningful information that enhances their banking journey.

Technological Frameworks and Tools

Overview of Current Technologies

Optimizing a bank’s notification strategy involves integrating a core set of technologies that enhance real-time decision-making, customer engagement, and compliance. Here’s a revised list of six essential tools for banks focusing on these aspects:

1.    Critical Event Gateways: Vital for managing urgent alerts such as fraud notifications or significant account changes, ensuring that critical information reaches customers without delay.

2.    Real-Time Analysis and Decision Engines: Tools that offer instant analysis of customer data to make informed decisions on which notifications to send significantly improve communications’ relevance and timeliness.

3.    Subscription Management Systems: Platforms that empower customers to set their notification preferences, including message types and preferred channels, enhancing the personalization of the banking experience.

4.    Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems: CRMs integrate with notification systems to provide a holistic view of customer interactions, enabling more targeted and effective communications based on the customer’s history and preferences.

5.    Omnichannel Communication Platforms: These platforms support seamless communication across multiple channels (e.g., SMS, email, push notifications, social media), allowing banks to reach customers via their preferred methods, thus improving engagement and satisfaction.

6.    Compliance and Security Tools: Ensuring notifications adhere to data protection and privacy laws is crucial. Tools that manage compliance and bolster security, including encryption and threat detection systems, protect sensitive information, and maintain customer trust.

Using these technologies, banks can develop a notification system that is dynamic and customer-focused, compliant with regulatory standards, and secure against emerging cyber threats.

This strategic approach ensures that banks can effectively communicate with their customers, delivering personalized and relevant notifications while safeguarding their data and adhering to industry regulations.

Selecting the Right Tools for Your Bank

Identifying and implementing the most suitable technology stack is essential for any bank aiming to enhance its notification strategy. When evaluating potential tools, scalability, security, and compliance play pivotal roles.

Additionally, a tool’s ability to integrate with critical event gateways and subscription engines can significantly affect the effectiveness of notification delivery, ensuring that urgent messages are prioritized and preferences are respected.

Leveraging Latinia to Enhance Bank Notification Strategies

Latinia provides a suite of sophisticated tools designed to address the challenges banks face in their notification strategies, integrating seamlessly with the bank’s existing infrastructure to create a dynamic, customer-centric communication ecosystem.

Latinia’s Critical Events Gateway stands as a cornerstone for managing and prioritizing the delivery of urgent notifications. This advanced platform ensures critical alerts, such as potential fraud warnings or significant account changes, are identified and dispatched immediately to the customer, bypassing the clutter of less urgent messages.

Latinia’s Subscription Rules Engine empowers customers to tailor their notification preferences, selecting not only the types of messages they wish to receive but also their preferred communication channels. This level of personalization ensures that customers are engaged with relevant, valuable information, thereby improving satisfaction and loyalty.

Finally, Latinia’s Next Best Action (NBA) tool takes customer engagement to the next level by utilizing real-time data analysis to offer personalized, actionable customer notifications at the most opportune moments. This proactive approach to customer communication enhances the customer experience and drives higher conversion rates and deeper customer relationships.

Measuring the Effectiveness of Notification Systems

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

To gauge the success of notification strategies, banks must monitor a set of KPIs, including delivery rates, open rates, and conversion rates. These metrics offer insights into how effectively notifications are reaching and engaging customers.

Customer Feedback and Engagement Metrics

Customer feedback serves as a direct line of insight into the impact of notification strategies. Engagement metrics, such as response rates and interaction levels, further illuminate the effectiveness of each communication.

Continuous Improvement and Adaptation

The landscape of customer communication is ever-changing. Banks must remain agile, continuously refining their notification strategies based on evolving customer preferences and technological advancements. This commitment to improvement and adaptation is key to maintaining relevance and fostering lasting customer relationships in the digital age.

Case Studies: Successful Implementation Examples with Latinia

Banco Bolivariano: Empower Customer Choice

Banco Bolivariano, Ecuador’s fifth-largest bank, focused on elevating customer engagement by embracing cloud technology and personalized communication channels in collaboration with Latinia. The project aimed to empower customers, allowing them to choose how and through which channels they wish to receive notifications, thus putting them in command of their communication preferences.

Recognizing alerts as crucial customer experience touchpoints, the bank integrated Latinia’s critical notification event gateway solution to offer a comprehensive 360º view of the customer’s banking relationship. This approach aligned perfectly with the bank’s digital transformation roadmap, enhancing the customer’s connected experience and positioning the bank competitively against other banks and leading companies in different industries.

Latinia’s flexibility in allowing customers to tailor their notification preferences and its specialized experience in the financial sector were key factors in the bank’s choice, ensuring seamless integration and a significant leap forward in customer-centric communication.

>> READ THE FULL CASE STUDY <<

Banco Industrial: Innovating in Banking Communication

Banco Industrial of Guatemala, the nation’s premier bank, aimed to enhance customer communication by expanding its alert system to include new channels and personalization. This initiative, driven by Carlos Vides, Deputy Manager of Modern Banking, sought to elevate the customer experience by adopting push notifications alongside traditional SMS alerts. The goal was to manage these notifications more effectively, ensuring customers received timely and relevant information.

The bank faced the challenge of seamlessly integrating these new channels into its existing infrastructure without disrupting customer service or altering business processes. Banco Industrial selected Latinia as its partner due to Latinia’s reputation, advanced notification capabilities, and platform flexibility. Latinia’s solution offered personalized service options and ensured reliable message delivery, even switching to SMS if push notifications encountered delivery issues.

The successful remote implementation of Latinia’s system demonstrated the effectiveness of this partnership, positioning Banco Industrial as a leader in customer communication innovation.

Conclusions

The strategic partnerships between banks like Banco Bolivariano and Banco Industrial with Latinia mark a significant leap forward in banking communication. These collaborations highlight the importance of digital transformation, demonstrating how tailored and efficiently managed notifications can substantially enhance customer engagement.

The key takeaway from these case studies is the crucial role of selecting the right technological partners to implement a customer-focused communication strategy that addresses current and future digital demands.

By adopting advanced technologies such as critical event gateways and subscription engines, banks are setting new industry standards for personalized and secure customer communication. This improves the customer experience and also solidifies the bank-customer relationship. Looking ahead, the continuous innovation in digital banking communication will be vital for banks aiming to remain competitive and retain customer loyalty in the digital age.

Interested in learning more about Latinia’s products and services? Contact us, and an expert will address all your questions and advise you on the best solution for your case.

La entrada The Astonishing Impact of Banking Notification Orchestration se publicó primero en Latinia.

As we delve deeper into the nuances of this shift, it becomes evident that the cloud is more than a technological upgrade. It represents a fundamental change in how banks operate, interact with customers, and innovate in their product and service offerings. The journey towards cloud adoption in banking is about reimagining the future of banking in an increasingly interconnected and digital world.

The Strategic Shift to Cloud in Banking

The banking industry is experiencing a shift, primarily fueled by changing consumer expectations and technological innovations. Today’s consumers, accustomed to the immediacy and convenience offered by digital giants, expect similar experiences from their banking services. This demand for quick, seamless, and personalized banking solutions is pushing traditional banks to rethink their operational models.

Simultaneously, the rise of fintech companies has introduced a new level of competition. These agile, tech-savvy players, often built on cloud-native platforms, are redefining what customers expect from financial services. To keep pace, traditional banks are increasingly turning to digital solutions, with cloud technology at the forefront, enabling them to innovate rapidly and efficiently.

Another critical factor is the evolving regulatory landscape. Banks face stringent regulations, especially concerning data security and privacy. Cloud services offer robust solutions to meet these regulatory demands while maintaining flexibility and scalability in operations.

The Role of Cloud Services in Enhancing Operational Agility and Resilience

Cloud services are pivotal in enhancing the operational agility of banks. By adopting cloud technology, banks can deploy new services faster, scale operations as per demand, and integrate advanced technologies like AI and big data analytics more seamlessly. This agility is crucial for banks to remain competitive and responsive to market changes.

Operational resilience is another area where cloud services play a critical role. The banking sector requires high standards of data security and system uptime. Cloud platforms provide robust disaster recovery and data redundancy capabilities, ensuring continuous operations even during unforeseen disruptions. This resilience is vital in maintaining trust and reliability, which are the bedrock of the banking industry.

Moreover, cloud computing enables banks to transition from a capital expenditure model to an operational expenditure model. This shift is financially advantageous, reducing upfront investments and allowing for more flexible and efficient budgeting. Cloud platforms also empower banks with enhanced data processing and analytics capabilities, leading to better decision-making, improved risk management, and more personalized customer service.

The strategic shift to cloud computing in banking is a response to the changing market dynamics and the need for greater operational agility and resilience. Cloud technology is a strategic tool that is reshaping the banking landscape, driving innovation, efficiency, and customer satisfaction.

Key Drivers for Cloud Adoption in Banking

One of the primary triggers for cloud migration in banking, as highlighted by IDC, is the need to keep up with rapidly evolving market demands. Traditional banking infrastructures, often mired in legacy systems, struggle to adapt to the fast-paced changes in consumer behavior and expectations. Cloud technology, with its inherent flexibility and scalability, offers a solution to this challenge, enabling banks to quickly roll out new services and adapt to market shifts.

Another significant trigger is the demand for functionalities and services that are inherently tied to cloud offerings. Banks are increasingly recognizing that cloud platforms provide access to cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, and advanced analytics. These technologies are crucial for data-driven decision-making, personalized customer experiences, and innovative financial products.

There is also a growing need for operational efficiency and cost-effectiveness in the banking sector. Cloud computing allows banks to optimize their IT spending by shifting from capital expenditure to operational expenditure. This shift not only helps in better financial management but also ensures that banks are not left with obsolete technology investments.

Demand for Specific Cloud Functionalities and Services

The demand for specific cloud functionalities and services is shaped by several factors. Security and compliance are at the top of this list. With the increasing frequency and sophistication of cyber threats, coupled with stringent regulatory requirements, banks are looking towards cloud solutions that offer robust security measures and compliance management tools.

Another area of focus is data management and analytics. Banks deal with vast amounts of data, and cloud platforms provide the necessary infrastructure to store, process, and analyze this data efficiently. This capability is crucial for gaining insights into customer behavior, risk management, and developing personalized banking services.

Additionally, the integration capabilities of cloud services are highly sought after. Banks operate in an increasingly interconnected environment, where the ability to seamlessly integrate with third-party services, fintech solutions, and other banking systems is essential. Cloud platforms facilitate these integrations, enabling banks to create a more cohesive and flexible IT ecosystem.

The key drivers for cloud adoption in banking revolve around the need for agility, innovation, and efficiency. Cloud technology addresses these needs by offering scalable, secure, and cost-effective solutions, making it an indispensable tool for banks in the digital age.

How Banks Gain from Cloud Migration

One of the most significant advantages of cloud migration is the enhancement of IT security and compliance. Cloud providers invest heavily in security technologies and protocols, offering a level of protection that would be challenging and costly for individual banks to replicate. This robust security infrastructure is crucial in an era where cyber threats are increasingly sophisticated and pervasive. Moreover, cloud services are designed to comply with various regulatory standards, ensuring that banks can meet their compliance obligations more efficiently.

Cloud computing also significantly boosts business agility. Banks can rapidly deploy new applications, scale services according to demand, and introduce innovative features without the lengthy development and deployment cycles associated with traditional IT infrastructure. This agility enables banks to respond swiftly to market changes, customer needs, and emerging opportunities.

Case Studies of Successful Cloud Implementation

Several banks have reaped the benefits of cloud migration. For instance, JPMorgan Chase’s partnership with cloud providers has enabled it to innovate faster, reduce risk, and increase the speed of software deployment. Similarly, HSBC’s cloud-first strategy has been instrumental in enhancing its operational efficiency and agility, allowing the bank to offer more personalized and responsive services to its customers.

Another example is Goldman Sachs, which leveraged cloud computing to transform its data architecture, resulting in improved data management, analytics capabilities, and ultimately, better decision-making processes.

These examples underscore the transformative impact of cloud technology in the banking sector. By adopting cloud solutions, banks are not only improving their operational efficiency and security posture but are also positioning themselves to be more adaptive and innovative in the rapidly evolving financial landscape.

Addressing the Challenges of Cloud Transition

One of the primary challenges banks face is the complexity of migrating legacy systems to the cloud. These systems are often deeply embedded in the bank’s operations and may not be readily compatible with modern cloud solutions. Additionally, concerns around data security and regulatory compliance in the cloud can be significant hurdles, especially given the sensitive nature of financial data and the stringent regulations governing the banking industry.

Another challenge is the skills gap. The shift to cloud computing requires a workforce skilled in new technologies and methodologies. Many banks struggle to find or develop the necessary talent internally.

To overcome these challenges, banks need a strategic approach that includes thorough planning, phased implementation, and continuous risk assessment. Partnering with experienced cloud service providers can significantly ease this transition. These providers offer expertise in handling data migration, ensuring security and compliance, and providing ongoing support.

In terms of addressing the skills gap, banks can invest in training and development programs for their existing staff, as well as seek to hire new talent with the requisite cloud expertise. Additionally, leveraging automated tools and platforms can reduce the dependency on highly specialized skills.

The Top 5 Reasons for Banks to Embrace Cloud Now

The banking sector stands at a pivotal juncture where embracing cloud technology is no longer a matter of choice but a necessity for staying competitive and relevant. Drawing insights from the IDC report, let’s delve into the top five reasons why banks should move to the cloud.

Accelerating Digital Business

 In today’s fast-paced digital world, banks need to rapidly adapt to changing market demands and customer expectations. Cloud technology enables banks to be more agile and responsive. It facilitates quicker deployment of digital services, enhances customer experience, and allows banks to innovate at a pace that traditional IT infrastructure cannot match.

Overcoming Staffing Hurdles

The cloud offers solutions to staffing challenges in the IT domain. By leveraging cloud services, banks can reduce their reliance on in-house IT staff for infrastructure management. Cloud providers offer access to a pool of experts and advanced technologies, enabling banks to focus more on core business strategies and less on technical complexities.

Improving IT Security and Compliance

With the increasing sophistication of cyber threats, cloud providers invest heavily in security, offering robust, state-of-the-art security features that can be more effective than what individual banks can implement. Additionally, cloud services are continually updated to comply with the latest regulatory standards, helping banks stay compliant with evolving regulations.

Enhanced Scalability and Flexibility

Cloud computing offers unparalleled scalability, allowing banks to efficiently manage resources in line with their current needs. This flexibility is crucial for handling fluctuating demands, launching new services, and expanding into new markets without the need for significant upfront investments in IT infrastructure.

Cost Efficiency and Innovation

Moving to the cloud can lead to significant cost savings. It reduces the need for large capital expenditures in hardware and shifts the cost to a more predictable operating expense model. Moreover, the cloud environment fosters innovation by providing access to the latest technologies and tools, enabling banks to explore new business models and revenue streams.

Conclusion

The transition to cloud computing is a cornerstone in the digital transformation of the banking sector. It offers unparalleled benefits in terms of operational agility, cost efficiency, enhanced security, and the ability to rapidly deploy innovative services. Banks that leverage cloud technology are better positioned to respond to evolving market demands and regulatory changes, ensuring they remain competitive and relevant in a rapidly changing digital landscape. This is an opportunity to innovate, grow, and lead in the financial services sector, with partners like Latinia playing a supportive role in this transformative journey.

From improving customer experiences to achieving operational excellence, cloud solutions open up a world of possibilities. Banks should actively explore these solutions, understanding their unique needs and how cloud technology can be tailored to meet these requirements.

In conclusion, the shift to cloud computing in the banking sector is not just a technological upgrade but a strategic evolution. It’s an opportunity for banks to redefine their operations, services, and customer relationships. As the industry moves forward, embracing cloud solutions will be key to staying competitive and meeting the ever-changing demands of the digital era.

Schedule a meeting with an expert to explore cloud solutions for your banking communications.

La entrada Banking in the Cloud: Insights for a Digital Future se publicó primero en Latinia.

HarmonyOS vs Android vs iOS

Huawei initially utilized the Android operating system, but due to trade restrictions imposed by the U.S. government in 2019, it accelerated the development of its own operating system: HarmonyOS. This operating system is used across a range of devices, including smartphones.

HarmonyOS sets itself apart from Android and iOS, operating with its own ecosystem, designed to be an independent and self-sufficient platform, providing an alternative to Google and Apple’s offerings.

Huawei’s Rapid Growth in Latin America and the World

Huawei’s presence in Latin America is simply undeniable. During the second quarter of 2023, Peru emerged as the country with the highest percentage of Huawei users, quickly scaling to a market share close to 11%. But Peru is not alone; in Chile, Colombia, and Mexico, Huawei’s presence surpasses 8.5%, setting a clear and rising trend. A statistic worth considering for effective banking communication.

Worthy of mention is the phenomenon of Huawei’s P60 Pro smartphone launch in Colombia, where it sold out in just a month after hitting the market. Leading cities in sales were Bogotá, Cali, and Medellín, with other regions like Barranquilla, Cúcuta, Bucaramanga, and Villavicencio not far behind. According to a Statista report, among smartphone manufacturers headquartered in China or Taiwan, Huawei firmly holds the second position in Colombia, hosting just over half the market share that Xiaomi does.

Furthermore, this growth is global. Huawei has charted an impressive trajectory by increasing its market share globally, with a remarkable 58% growth in sales during Q2 of this year, reaching a global market share of 11.3%.

The trajectory of Huawei’s recovery and growth is, without a doubt, a path we anticipate will continue to accelerate. As essential players in the financial sector, staying updated on this evolution is not just strategic but crucial to ensure uninterrupted connection with a broad customer base.

The Critical Importance of Communication Collectors

Those unfamiliar with the term might wonder, what is a collector? In simple terms, within Latinia’s component architecture, it’s the element that manages the connection between the SDP Gateway and a specific notification provider. For push notifications, we have a collector for Apple and one for Google, for example.

That’s why we emphasize the need for integrating specific collectors for Huawei users, which are as important as those for Apple and Android users, thereby ensuring that no customer is left out of the loop.

The Risk of Ignoring Huawei Users

The significant increase in Huawei’s presence highlights a growing and severe problem: a significant percentage of users using Huawei devices may not be receiving critical communications like OTPs (One-Time Passwords), essential security tools for banking transactions. This happens due to the absence of the corresponding collector connecting the bank to Huawei’s push service platform.

The inability to communicate securely and effectively with around 10% of users can have far-reaching implications, not just jeopardizing critical banking operations but eroding customer trust and satisfaction. In the banking context, where trust is vital, losing even a small slice of customers can translate into significant losses and a tarnished reputation.

There’s Still Time to Act

We are prepared to close this crucial gap in communication. Our team has developed a specific collector for Huawei and we are ready to assist in its integration, ensuring complete alignment with the needs and demands of all customers.

It’s time to step up and ensure that every communication, every critical message, reaches each and every customer, regardless of the device they use. This guarantees not just security but also customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Don’t hesitate to get in touch with your local Latinia Representative to initiate this crucial process. We are here to ensure no customer gets left behind.

La entrada The Silent Crisis: Are Banks Overlooking a Critical User Segment? se publicó primero en Latinia.

Each bank will adopt its unique approach and timeline when transitioning to the cloud. Whether a financial institution is at the initial stages of this transformative journey or has made significant progress, the following considerations can assist banks in successfully navigating the cloud migration process. 

Take a step-by-step approach 

As financial institutions embark on this journey, it is important that they keep a bold vision at the center of their approach while still moving forward with small steps as opposed to giant leaps.  

Cloud architecture is not the same as an architecture designed to be deployed on-premises. Monolithic architectures do not adapt well to the Cloud. Microservices and containerization are examples of these small but steady steps, whereas any other alternative will be a missed opportunity because instead of building a Cloud infrastructure, with all the advantages that entails, you will simply be migrating to another data center. 

Container orchestration tools offer a convenient solution for creating, updating, and removing applications without the need to focus on the underlying infrastructure. This makes them particularly valuable for DevOps teams engaged in projects that involve numerous microservices, which are small software components. Leveraging these microservices simplifies the orchestration of services, encompassing deployment, storage, networking, and security aspects. 

In line with this progress, the Latinia Container Class products for cloud deployment not only harnesses the inherent advantages of the cloud, such as scalability and cost savings, but also offers the utilization of open-source products in lieu of third-party licensed solutions. 

Moving to the cloud allows applications and customers to scale horizontally, enabling autoscaling features to meet the requirements of rapid growth. Modular architecture based on cloud-native microservices on orchestrators fully adapts to the business load needs in an elastic way with the best market practices based on auto-scaling. 

Horizontal scalability not only facilitates customer acquisition but also enables banks to expand their geographical reach effortlessly. Additionally, it expedites the introduction of new products and services, empowering banks to remain agile in a competitive market. 

Delegate cloud service management tasks 

A barrier to faster cloud adoption lies in reskilling existing IT teams and hiring new talent to drive cloud strategy. One way to ease the IT staffing burden is managed cloud service. Delegating cloud service management tasks helps organizations make the most of cloud services while reducing the associated manpower and costs. 

Latinia Managed Cloud Service allows banks to focus on growing their business while Container Class product operations are taken care of by Latinia itself. Benefits include uninterrupted service with a proven 99.9% uptime, automatic deployment of the latest updates, and maximum protection against the latest security vulnerabilities. 

La entrada How to Remove Obstacles on Your Way to the Cloud  se publicó primero en Latinia.

What are information data silos?

Have you ever wondered why you are being sent marketing messages to download an application you already have installed, or to apply for a bank card you already have? Data silos are the enemy of digital transformation and the reason that even with millions of dollars spent, customer experiences remain disconnected and confusing.

Information data silos refer to isolated repositories or systems within an organization where data is stored and managed independently, often without integration or communication with other data sources. 

In the context of customer information in banks, data silos arise when customer data is fragmented and scattered across different departments, systems, or geographic locations within the bank.

Data silos occur due to various factors, including:

• Organizational structure.
• Legacy systems.
• Departmental autonomy.
• Lack of data governance.

Each department or system may have its own databases, applications, or platforms, leading to the segregation of customer information.

For example, customer data may reside in separate systems for account management, loan processing, credit cards, and customer relationship management (CRM).

The Frankenstein Effect: facing the challenge of bank data silos

All banks have access to useful customer information like their assets, income, upcoming life events, and credit scores. However, since this information is not stored in one place, providing customers with the top-notch experience they deserve can be challenging.

These isolated data silos result in a disjointed and incomplete view of customer information. The data within each silo is not easily accessible or shared across the organization, hindering collaboration, decision-making, and providing a holistic understanding of the customer.

Furthermore, information data silos can lead to data duplication, inconsistencies, and inaccuracies. When different departments or systems maintain their own copies of customer data, updates or changes made in one silo may not be reflected in others. This lack of synchronization can cause confusion, errors, and ultimately impact the overall customer experience.

Banks must recognize and address information data silos to ensure a comprehensive and unified view of customer information, enabling better decision-making, personalized services, and improved customer experience.

Strategies to overcome data silos in banks

Several strategies can be implemented to overcome the challenges posed by information data silos in banks and achieve a unified view of customer information. Here are some practical approaches:

Data integration and consolidation

Banks can work towards integrating and consolidating their data sources to eliminate silos. This involves establishing a centralized data repository or data warehouse that acts as a single source of truth for customer information.

By consolidating data from various systems and departments, banks can ensure data consistency, eliminate duplication, and enable seamless data access and sharing.

Implementing a single customer view

Creating a single customer view involves integrating customer data from multiple sources to form a unified, comprehensive profile for each customer. Banks can gain a holistic understanding of their customers by linking and aggregating customer information across various touchpoints, such as transactional data, account details, interactions, and preferences. 

This consolidated view enhances customer service, facilitates personalized offerings, and improves cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.

Data governance and standardization

Establishing robust data governance practices is crucial for breaking down data silos. Banks should define data standards, policies, and procedures to ensure customer information consistency, quality, and security. 

Implementing data governance frameworks enables organizations to enforce data sharing protocols, establish data ownership, and maintain data integrity across systems and departments.

Cross-functional collaboration

Encouraging collaboration and communication across different departments is vital to overcoming data silos. Banks should foster a culture of cross-functional teamwork and information sharing. 

This can be achieved through regular meetings, joint projects, and the use of collaborative tools and platforms that facilitate data exchange and knowledge sharing.

Cross-functional teams can work together to identify common data needs, streamline processes, and implement cohesive data management strategies.

Investing in modern data technologies

Banks should leverage modern data technologies like cloud computing, big data analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI) to break down data silos.

Cloud-based platforms provide scalability and agility, enabling seamless data integration and access across the organization. Advanced analytics and AI algorithms can uncover insights from disparate data sources, enhancing decision-making and customer intelligence. 

Investing in these technologies enables banks to overcome the limitations of legacy systems and create a more interconnected and data-driven environment.

Overcoming fractured customer identities with Latinia

Banks are often structured around vertical products such as loans, cards, and insurance. However, customers are frequently offered a combination of these products, especially when making big purchases such as appliances. They may need to pay in installments, insure the item, and use their card for discounts. This requires collaboration between silos such as cards, lending, and insurance to provide a seamless experience for the customer.

As the experts in real-time analytics and decision software products for the financial sector, Latinia can offer a solution to overcome the challenges of fractured customer data across different platforms, so that banks can gain a real-time, full picture of their customers, and consistently offer them positive, relevant experiences at the right time through the optimal channels.

With Latinia, banks can easily collaborate between different silos using multiple identifiers for a single customer profile. In Latinia Customer Management Center, every user is assigned a unique Master ID as the main index by default.

Apart from the Master ID, which is usually either the client’s national ID number or a specific ID generated by the bank, other secondary identifiers can be set to obtain a multi-index customer profile, so that several reference indexes – e.g. cell phone numbers or hashed primary account numbers (PAN) – can be added from different areas in the bank.

After solving the challenges of fractured customer identities and potential duplicates, banks can now easily focus on identifying new cross-selling and upselling opportunities to generate more revenue.

Leveraging unified customer information for customized experiences with Latinia

By leveraging transactional activity in real-time, Latinia provides banks with a solution to generate context-aware recommendations for their customers on the Next Best Action (NBA) or best-next offer needed to meet their real-time goals, and at the precise moment when they are more likely to engage.

Timing and relevance go hand in hand. However, given the rate at which consumers are constantly bombarded with all kinds of messages, saturation is another factor that needs to be taken into account to prevent customers from feeling annoyed by an excess of notifications.

With Latinia’s saturation tool, the number and frequency of those impacts targeted to a specific customer can be controlled by the bank based on a set of conditions. The bank sets a limit on the number of times an NBA can be sent to a customer, so as not to overwhelm them with too many messages.

The saturation tool allows for specific saturation limits to be set for each NBA, so that the bank can ensure that customers receive a balanced number of messages from different NBAs. This means that, even if the maximum global saturation rate defined in the organization has not been reached, the bank can saturate an NBA earlier, thus shifting the window of opportunity to another NBA that is not saturated for the customer.

Example:

Mark receives the above NBA after using his credit card at the gas station. This specific NBA has been set to 1 impact/month, so Mark will not receive the same NBA again even if he does not take action and refills his tank two weeks later, for instance.

However, he may receive another NBA on the same day which can be triggered by a different transaction. For example, after filling up his tank, Mark drives to a mall and makes a large purchase. Immediately, he receives a message with a BNPL financing offer from the bank.

Commercial NBAs can also be combined with service-focused NBAs, where the bank steps in to resolve customer issues proactively. For instance, if Mark is unable to make a payment at the mall because he reached his credit limit, the bank, which has the information, can jump in promptly to offer a solution.

La entrada Facing the Data Silo Challenge: How Banks Can Overcome Fractured Customer Identities se publicó primero en Latinia.

The Challenge: Managing Service Demand Fluctuations with Legacy Systems

Redeban’s transaction notification processing services experienced steady growth over the past 15 years. To keep pace with the increasing volume of notifications, the company underwent a series of expansions to its on-premises infrastructure. However, as the significance of bank alerts in the customer service experience continued to grow, Redeban faced an ever-changing and unpredictable demand for its services. As a result, the company struggled to meet occasional peaks of up to a sixfold increase in demand, as requested by top-tier banks, while ensuring immediate delivery of notifications.

 As demand for their services continued to increase, Redeban’s legacy infrastructure was holding back their growth and compromising service quality. The challenge was not only to keep pace with this unpredictable demand, but also to ensure that critical notifications were delivered to customers in a timely manner.

“Keeping our existing on-prem infrastructure was totally unfeasible in terms of profitability without affecting service quality,” stated German Daza, Head of Emission Solutions at Redeban. “The system where Latinia’s product was running had also become technologically outdated.”

Eventually, it was time for Redeban to embrace the cloud.

Overcoming Challenges in the Implementation of a Cloud-Based Project

To address these challenges, Latinia advised Redeban to transition to a new Container Class LIMSP© Gateway for cloud deployment. This approach not only leverages the inherent benefits of the cloud, such as scalability and cost savings, but also offers the use of open-source products in place of third-party licensed solutions.

Latinia assisted Redeban with the development of a custom business case which simplified the decision process. “After comparing costs between buying new on-prem machines again with third-party software or adopting cloud deployment, the second option was favored, especially in terms of projection,” stated Luis Alberto Leguizamon, Senior Manager of Special Projects at Redeban. “Although the initial investment was high, the remainder costs were much more transparent, easier to cover and to justify.”

 The implementation of this project posed multiple challenges as it involved migrating the existing technology infrastructure of a high-volume notification service in production without disrupting service continuity. Unlike traditional on-premises projects, there was no “installation” stage, as the unattended product deployment capacity allowed for a quicker deployment. However, the commissioning of the cloud infrastructure was influenced by third parties such as financial entities and mobile operators, making it crucial to ensure continuity of service during the migration. Through careful planning and support from the technical team, migration was successful, and service was not affected.

Leveraging the Benefits of the Cloud: Scalability, Cost Savings, and Improved Service Quality

With the new cloud-based infrastructure in place, Redeban is now able to easily scale up or down as needed, ensuring that they can meet the service demands of their customers in real-time with consistent high quality.

“Cloud migration was not an option, but a necessity to provide continuity to the service while ensuring our high levels of quality offered through the years. The scalability offered by the cloud allows us not only to always adapt our infrastructure to the needs of our customers, but also to dedicate resources to a particular bank with specific needs or levels of demand. From now on, Redeban can face any future demand scenario with the highest quality and security standards.”

Luis Alberto Leguizamon, Senior Manager of Special Projects at Redeban

Additionally, Redeban has

• Saved 30% on infrastructure costs
• Improved service quality by reducing the processing time for each notification by 20% at peak hours
• Achieved a processing level of 0.02 seconds per notification

Read the full case study here.

Migrating on-premises applications to the cloud provides an opportunity for organizations to improve their overall efficiency and competitiveness. By working with a trusted partner such as Latinia, Redeban’s transition to a cloud-based infrastructure has been a success, allowing them to keep up with unpredictable demand while improving service quality and staying competitive in today’s market.

La entrada Redeban: Reaping the Benefits of a Smooth Path to Cloud se publicó primero en Latinia.

Banking has had to face continuous transformation, that has directly impacted highly established products and services such as payment cards. The report A Guide to Understanding Modern Card Issuing, published by Marqeta, delves into the new uses of credit cards, which allow companies to create payment solutions with rapid implementation, flexibility and customization.

The present-day and future of payment cards

Disruptive and emerging companies are seeking to lead the market with ongoing development of payment solutions that adapt to the changing needs of their customers. This frenetic pace of innovating and launching new products is very difficult for banks to keep up with, as they are burdened with cumbersome legacy infrastructures, and also find it difficult to seal alliances with third parties that could provide greater agility in the management of this type of transaction based on payment flows.

But despite these difficulties, banks must respond to consumers, who demand integrated and personalized services. In this sense, they are clearly betting on APIs, as are their Fintech competitors, to play an increasingly important role in the financial ecosystem with the aim of creating new, much more efficient payment experiences that provide access to a greater number of more integrated, and even invisible, services and transactions.

As the report published by Marqeta explains, “the financial and non-financial institutions that use open payment APIs think differently about their payment strategies. They are adopting more granular functionality in place of traditional monolithic, silo-based payment systems, where individual tasks, such as the transaction clearing, reversals, refunds, and voids flowed through an opaque, closed process.”

In line with this idea, Oriol Ros, Director of Corporate Development at Latinia, affirms that “the adoption of API interfaces is an opportunity to accelerate innovation in banks, enabling them to collaborate within broader service ecosystems, generating powerful results such as validating payment, location and cardholder identity in real time.”

Another highlight for consumers is the security of their payment transactions, no matter where they make them, whether from a physical store, on a mobile device, or a web page. In this respect, APIs allow financial institutions to encrypt sensitive card-issued information, such as a personal account number, with tokens that are stored securely online with merchants for recurring payments, at the click of a button.

“Consumers are asking for payment methods that adapt to their needs in an agile way and with maximum guarantees in terms of security. A very striking example is Amazon Go, which allows customers to purchase and leave the store without paying at the checkout,” points out Latinia’s Director of Corporate Development.

Advantages of issuing modern cards

So, what do these new payment cards offer their users, and why are they gaining ground so rapidly on a global scale? Here are some of their most noteworthy attributes:

• Speed and convenience: with an open API you can personalize each experience without involving the card issuer and stay up to date with ISO-8583 implementations around the world. The reach of the cards allows for mobile wallet and app integrations such as Apple Pay, Google Pay and card networks such as Visa and Mastercard.
• Flexibility: with their own processing engines, card issuing platforms analyze and interpret ISO-8583 messages to help support transaction and authorization decisions.
• Consumer trust: card issuing platforms remove the barriers of certifications that take 6 to 12 months, allowing you to set PINs in your online applications without the need for further action. With APIs you can create individual data visualization and analysis, helping to create risk algorithms and automatic learning to detect predictive risk behaviors as well as triggering event-based alerts and sending real-time updates.
• Global scalability: is guaranteed to be deployed anywhere without the need to integrate with each local card network. These platforms are located in a global cloud that automatically adapts to the volume of traffic and transactions.

La entrada Payment cards evolve with APIs se publicó primero en Latinia.

Latinia, a leading developer of real-time decision and communication software products for banking, has launched a survey for its Linkedin community to find out what is most attractive about cloud computing for professionals in the sector.

Benefits of the cloud can be adapted to different needs

The advantages of adopting a cloud platform for banks are scalability, lower costs, the ability to manage big data in real time, and increased levels of security thanks to its flexibility and ease of upgradeability. Among these benefits of the cloud, the majority of survey participants considered the most attractive advantage for migrating to a cloud platform to be its flexibility and capacity for growth, with 71% of respondents, followed by greater management efficiency and cost reduction, at 14%.

“Cloud services offer multiple benefits that can be tailored to the unique needs of each bank. Its flexibility is one of the most significant advantages, as it saves time and energy when it comes to updating the digital infrastructure of each bank, and boosting customer development and satisfaction. The cloud reduces costs, and is therefore an efficient technology,” affirms Marc Alcón, CEO of Latinia.

Which cloud infrastructure is best suited to banking?

There are three infrastructures on which to install a cloud platform, and banks should choose the one that best suits their needs at the time of migration:

• Private cloud: this infrastructure belongs to a single organisation and hosts its own data centre. Its management allows for greater control of data, and better security and server management.
• Public cloud: allows the provider to be in charge of managing system updates and data security. With this public infrastructure, you only pay for the functionalities you use. It is a flexible option that allows banks to access resources on demand, depending on individual and business objectives.
• Hybrid cloud: the combination of both private and public infrastructures allows banks to leverage the two, maintaining functionalities with respect to their needs and costs, and providing access to greater flexibility.

Participants in the survey clearly favoured hybrid infrastructure as the most suitable for banking, with 66% voting for hybrid infrastructure, compared to 20% for private, followed by public infrastructure at 14%.

“When a bank opts for cloud adoption, there is no one right infrastructure, they all work. Each bank must consider the framework that best suits their current and future needs, as well as those of their customers. At Latinia, we are ready to offer advice to those banks that are interested in tackling this process,” explains the CEO.

Cloud computing, much more than a trend

The potential of this technology to increase the efficiency of organisations is indisputable, and its capacity for on-demand use of those services that are required according to the needs of the moment is particularly attractive, according to 57% of the professionals surveyed.

In addition, the benefits of the cloud also impact the bank-customer relationship. This technology helps banks to easily audit processes and customer information, providing greater control to be more accessible. In fact, the accessibility factor was ranked highest by the community, with 44% of votes, followed by increased security with 33% of results, and better technological performance at 22%.

“At Latinia we are clearly committed to the cloud as the spearhead of banking’s digital transformation, and we are already working with our clients to provide them with more elastic models that are already adapted to the standards of this technology,” concludes Marc Alcón

La entrada Benefits of the cloud for the financial sector se publicó primero en Latinia.

Where does Latinia currently stand as a company? 

We are very pleased with our accomplishments, particularly in Latin America. Now that we have consolidated our presence in the leading banks in that region, our next challenge is to make the leap to the United States and continue to strengthen our position throughout the American continent.

What is your current value proposition and how has it evolved since its inception?

Our value proposition has evolved over the years. Latinia’s strategy based on facilitating communication with bank clients has progressed, bringing us to a place of being an active player in proactive customer communication initiatives thanks to the development of our Real-Time Analysis and Notification engines.

What are the major achievements of the Latinia team in recent years?

We are a benchmark brand in the sector and this is undoubtedly the result of a job well done by a team of committed experts throughout the company’s history. This recognition has allowed us to continue growing in the different markets Latinia is present, as well as consolidating and expanding our customer base.

How has product implementation changed over the years? What improvements have been made?

The implementation process of our products must give way to increasingly frictionless integration procedures. If clients require implementation, the process must be accompanied by Pipeline-based models and, whenever possible, supported by IaaC deployment models for the required infrastructure.

How did the idea of developing a product like Next Best Action (NBA) come about?

NBA originated as a response to requests from our clients, who expressed the need to expand the use of our alerts product, a parameterizable subscription engine in which the rules are defined by the banking customer, deciding what, how and when they want to receive notifications from their financial institution. In developing Next Best Action (NBA), the objective was to design an engine in which the rules are defined and adjusted to the products that the bank wants to promote, based on the financial reality and movement of the client’s own real-time events.

What are the advantages and benefits of your Real-Time Analytics products?

Most of the transactional event analytics products available on the market work by batch, i.e. by reviewing a past reality, or by polling, which is done against events that have already gone through the bank. In the case of Latinia’s Real-Time engines, they are natively integrated with core stream events or payment platforms, providing real-time analysis that allows the activation of rules appropriate to the moment in which the financial situation is unfolding.

What is the future of Real-Time Analysis of financial events?

At Latinia we envision a future for banking that is clearly aimed toward technologies such as Blockchain and open data streams between different entities. Technological trends are leading us towards more interconnected models, and greater integration of third-party subscription with Open Banking ecosystems in Fintech, to provide the sector with enhanced interoperability, which in turn generates more business opportunities for the financial industry.

Another one of the most relevant technological trends for banking today is cloud adoption. What is Latinia’s position with respect to this technology?

This technology has enormous potential, therefore, our commitment is to accompany all financial institutions ready to take advantage of the benefits of cloud computing, as long as the local regulator allows it, since unfortunately, we continue to encounter significant barriers caused by the regulations of individual countries that prevent us from accelerating its implementation and adoption. The technology change projects currently underway are focused on moving away from reliance on monolithic architectures to work on more modular platforms that run on MicroServices and related content, on Service Orchestration such as Kubernetes. This first stage of cloud adoption allows us to provide our customers with more elastic models that are already adapted to the standards of this technology.

What are the advantages for clients of implementing Latinia’s products in the cloud?

One of the greatest benefits of cloud adoption is improving the efficiency of infrastructure use and, therefore, the accounting of business areas. The cloud enables greater adaptability to business-generated opportunities with a more elastic technology model, as well as reducing dependence on infrastructure areas to provide a better time-to-market for the adoption of new services. Territorial availability is also expanded, with native multi-zone deployments versus native CPD models. Another clear advantage is the reduction of known vulnerabilities of the stack that makes up the service, thanks to the higher degree of maintainability provided by the cloud.

How is Latinia helping its clients in this process of migrating from on-premise to cloud infrastructures, and what projects have already been carried out? 

The support we are providing banks that wish to embark on the cloud adoption journey is based on our experience with other entities, with whom we have already worked together with new Cloud areas created by the bank, or other external providers. We work to define a migration plan to intermediate architectures based on microservices and Kubernetes, or on solutions that take a cloud-native path, with the aim of adapting to each entity, and offering the best technological advice.

La entrada “We are accompanying banks that are ready for cloud adoption”, Marc Alcón, CTO of Latinia se publicó primero en Latinia.

This change in trend towards cloud computing on behalf of banks is one of the conclusions drawn from a recent survey conducted by the McKinsey consulting firm, which states that  “only 13 percent [of financial-services leaders] had half or more of their IT footprint in the cloud. But migration to the cloud is gathering momentum. More than half of the survey respondents—54 percent—said they expect to shift at least half of their workloads to the public cloud over the next five years”.

In this respect, Ron Shevlin, Senior Contributor for Forbes magazine, references in his article “The Two Things Banks Get Wrong About Cloud Migration”, to the Cornerstone Advisors’ 2022 report “What’s Going On in Banking”, which confirms this technological shift towards the cloud and asserts that “two-thirds of US banks and credit unions already have—or expect to have by the end of 2022—apps running in the cloud”. This article explains how migration to the cloud has become one of the most important challenges for banks today: “the challenge is transitioning to the cloud and replacing systems and applications that could increase efficiency and effectiveness—and maybe even provide competitive advantage—by being in the cloud”.

Cloud migration, a priority for the financial sector and for Latinia

“Banks must make cloud adoption a priority in order to advance their digital transformation and, above all, to remain competitive in a financial industry in which fintech services and digital native companies are increasing their market share,” says Marc Alcón, CEO of Latinia. “At Latinia we have already developed and implemented cloud migration projects with several of our clients, and we will continue with this strategy, convinced of this technology’s potential”, he concludes.

McKinsey is also clearly committed to encouraging the financial sector to undertake this technological challenge as a fundamental part of its digitalization process: “institutions that do not define an overall aspiration and put in place the right success factors to achieve it often fail to capture value from the cloud.”

“How rapidly financial institutions can migrate to the cloud determines how fast—and effectively—they can complete their digital transformation”, says Ron Shevlin for Forbes.

How to accelerate the migration to the cloud?

According to the consulting firm McKinsey and based on their experience working with dozens of financial institutions on their migrations to the cloud, banks should pay special attention to three shifts to accelerate their cloud migration:

1. Strategy and management: the advantages that the cloud can bring to the company must be shared with the entire organization and the discourse must be articulated in terms of benefits such as scalability, efficiency and elasticity. As McKinsey explains, “institutions can place less emphasis on the theoretical value of cloud and use the business case as a practical guide to real value, which makes it easier for the organization to understand and support the goals of a migration.”
2. Business-domain adoption: business and technology units must function in a synchronized and cross-functional manner. McKinsey recommends to “start the migration at the domain level—a complete product, service, or function, such as the checking suite or security foundation—rather than by opportunistically moving disparate applications.”
3. Foundational capabilities: one of the most important actions when designing a cloud migration strategy is to automate as much as possible. “Because the cloud is so dynamic—new servers can come online as needed, and capacity can be extended to meet unforeseen spikes in usage—automating finances can help to flag or adjust financial issues to keep costs in line with the business’s goals”, explains the consulting firm in its report.

La entrada How should banks manage cloud migration? se publicó primero en Latinia.

These figures highlight an unstoppable trend of mobile device use in banking interactions, but as the report points out, there is still a clear imbalance in the behaviour of customers who express large differences between their willingness to use, preference for, and actual use of digital channels. “For example, although willingness to open a new current account digitally hovers around 75 percent, only 30 to 35 percent of customers express an actual preference to do so digitally, and only 15 percent of such accounts are opened digitally”, according to a report published by McKinsey Financial Services.

In this respect, the report foresees that this gap may remain for some time to come: “even if the digital growth rates achieved in 2021 continue, transitioning all “willing” consumers to digital channels would take four to five years”.

Why does this gap in the use of digital channels exist?

The authors of the report point to the lack of a multi-channel strategy on behalf of banks that consistently addresses a relationship model with their customers based on effectiveness, efficiency and satisfaction of clients’ needs: “with consumer willingness, preference, and actual behavior out of balance, banks should rethink the prevailing “digitize” mindset, which approaches digital by recreating offline journeys online.”

As stated in the report, “banks have yet to fully embrace this demand: less than 30 percent of banks globally have introduced new digital acquisition journeys for their public website or mobile apps”. This reality means that many customers do not feel comfortable yet operating entirely in digital channels and still require personal attention to manage their finances. “Attitudinally, 28 percent of customers continue to prefer to meet servicing needs at branches—a share that jumps to nearly 50 percent for sensitive and/or complex situations such as fraud and advice on financial difficulties”, according to data compiled by the consulting firm.

Promoting digital channels

To bridge this gap and further boost digital channels, banks should focus their efforts on implementing solutions that are tailored to the interests of customers, based on enablers such as data, analytics, and technology, as well as fostering deeper levels of trust in digital environments. In this sense, real-time banking alert services, such as those developed by Latinia, have proven to be extremely useful and versatile tools for financial institutions, helping improve bank-customer communication channels and reinforce interaction security. “Our solutions help banks accompany customers in their daily lives consistently, adapting to their preferences and with the aim of providing a useful service in situations that may arise such as operational problems with their cards, fraud, customisable advice, etc.” explains Juliana Ortiz, Customer Success Manager at Latinia.

Ultimately, banks will be able to reverse this situation, and promote transversality in the use of digital channels to an extent that they manage to offer experiences that generate trust and satisfaction among customers. “Success depends on creating truly unique-to-digital experiences in harmony with improving and enhancing physical channels with digital elements,” concludes McKinsey.

La entrada 70% of banking interactions take place through digital channels se publicó primero en Latinia.

In terms of IT spending by financial institutions, the Gartner Research Centre released a forecast focused on this industry that estimates spending will grow by an above-average 6.1% to $623 billion globally by 2022. IT services, which include consulting and managed services, account for 42% of total technology spending in the sector at $264 billion. Software, on the other hand, is the fastest growing category, with spending expected to increase by 11.5 per cent to $149 billion.

Despite these astronomical figures and the consolidation of the uptrend seen in recent periods, there is some slowdown in investment. According to John-David Lovelock, distinguished research vice president at Gartner, “it will be at a much slower pace than 2021 due to spending cutbacks on PCs, tablets and printers by consumers, causing spending on devices to shrink 5%”.

The reasons behind this trend are high inflation and interest rate hikes. This current economic uncertainty is not only affecting IT spending, it is also changing business consumption patterns. As John-David Lovelock explains, “price increases and delivery uncertainty, exacerbated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, have accelerated the transition in purchasing preference among CIOs, and enterprises in general, from ownership to service, pushing cloud spending to 18.4% growth in 2021 and expected growth of 22.1% in 2022”.

Towards a service-based model, according to Gartner Research Centre

This paradigm shift in businesses away from an IT ownership model to a services-based model is driving investment in data centres and cloud computing. According to the Gartner Research Centre, “not only is demand for cloud services reshaping the IT services industry, but it is also driving server spending up to 16.6% growth by 2022 as hyperscalers build out their data centres”. They add, “Cloud consulting and implementation and cloud managed services are expected to grow 17.2% in 2022, from $217bn in 2021 to $255bn in 2022, which will help drive the overall IT services segment to 6.2% growth in 2022.”

This growth in spending is driven by the increased costs often associated with investing in cloud computing and the migration process from legacy on-premises platforms. In addition, as Gartner research vice president Sid Nag points out, “cloud-native capabilities, such as containerisation, database platform as a service (dbPaaS) and artificial intelligence/machine learning, contain richer features than commoditised computing, such as IaaS or Network-as-a-Service (NaaS). As a result, they are generally more expensive, which is fuelling the growth in spending.”

However, as John-David Lovelock recommends, taking on these costs should not scare companies considering the advantages of a cloud platform, as long as this technology is implemented with all the necessary safeguards. Early cloud adoption will mean a clear competitive advantage in the future, a key to survival: “Organisations that do not invest in the short term, will likely fall behind in the medium term, and risk not being around in the long term.”

La entrada IT investment on the upswing, despite economic uncertainty, according to Gartner Research Centre se publicó primero en Latinia.