4 key lessons traditional financial institutions need to learn from COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the shortcomings of a number of traditional financial institutions, especially as related to digital transformation. Here are 4 digital transformation lessons they need to embrace in the post-pandemic period or risk being left behind:

  • Be more open to digital collaboration – traditional financial institutions’ internal digital processes are lacking to say the least and have greatly impacted their ability to adequately serve consumers. Getting them up-to-date is not as complicated as many think as there are skilled and well-resourced teams waiting to help them develop appropriate solutions for the modern world.
  • Prioritize consumer experiences – traditional financial institutions, despite their talk about “the journey”, “listening” and “making it happen”, have not developed (or even attempted to in many cases) consumer-centric models. This has to change as consumers are now actively searching for and finding companies that are centered around consumers and their needs.
  • Use consumer data smarter – many traditional financial institutions seem unable and uninterested in the effective use of consumer data. With open banking legislation being pushed worldwide, this is likely to change as others (e.g. FinTechs) are happily stepping in to crunch this data and utilize the results for their own benefits.
  • Embrace an agile, can-do mindset – traditional financial institutions are notoriously among the worst when it comes to being able to quickly and effectively adapt to new realities. Developing agile solutions and ways of working as well as establishing a culture of innovation will go a long way in reversing this.