5 Emerging Trends in the Financial Sector

By: Rob Hoehn

The financial landscape is changing and the crowd is uniquely suited to help banks and other financial institutions solve some of the challenges they face. In this article, we look at five tech trends and how they’re changing how financial institutions interact with their customers.

CDW recently published an infographic on their FinTalk blog about the top tech trends that are impacting the financial sector. The five trends that they discussed are: data analytics, digitization, security, mobility, and regulatory challenges.

We wanted to discuss not only what each of these challenges were, but how the crowd is uniquely suited to help banks and other financial institutions solve some of these problems.

Data Analytics

In this case, CDW means data analytics about customers and their behaviors. Using data analytics can help improve the customer experience, increase speed and efficiency and find the competitive edge. In this case, crowd data that addresses any of these subjects is the data that should be analyzed that will improve these key areas of performance.

Digitization

We’re talking about an omnichannel digital presence here. The boundaries between banks and their customers are becoming increasingly fluid. For example, what if in the future, you can automatically make a purchase directly from the Hulu commercial your watching? How will banks support that level of functionality. Asking both employees and customers about their behaviors will help prioritize your digital efforts.

Security

Cyber security is paramount in every industry, but perhaps none more so than the financial industry where privacy is crucial. Oftentimes, IT organizations will reach out to the crowd to ask for ideas about vulnerabilities or new technologies to help them stay current.

Mobility

Mobile continues to dominate all industries as the most common customer touchpoint. Did you know that AllState’s mobile app idea came from one of their lawyers in a crowdsourcing initiative? It’s possible for anyone to share ideas and wireframes about how to improve mobile experience.

Regulatory Challenges

According to CDW 57% of global financial services executives believe regulation has enabled the growth of their business. Sometimes your employees have the best ideas about out how regulatory challenges impact your business.

With all of these challenges, it’s no surprise that 87% of bank executives think that innovation is important to their organization. What’s interesting though is that most of these trends turn up in other industries, as well, which means the crowd can help solve these problems across verticals. In fact, sometimes reaching into an adjacent industry is the best place to find a solution.

IdeaScale researched how crowdsourcing can benefit the financial sector and created this complimentary white paper, which you can download here.

What are the top trends impacting your sector? Can crowdsourcing help you?

By Rob Hoehn