Vector illustration of two businessmen opening bank vault door. Electric light bulbs in safe.

Open banking changing the landscape of the financial services industry

Open banking is becoming a trend in markets worldwide as it enables for quicker, more efficient use of customer data to create customer-centric experiences and meet the increasing demands for world-class customer service. Larger, traditional banks are quickly lagging behind in this regard as they are often shackled by legacy IT system problems and having offshore contact centers. A generation of challenger banks has emerged that are built upon digitization and mobile capacity, all with the customer in mind from the beginning. For traditional banks to compete and survive, they need to adhere to the old core business principles that are unlikely to change: recognize the value of listening to customers, embrace feedback and learn how to act on it quickly.

Although the road ahead may be difficult for traditional banks in terms of overcoming the compelling services and products offered by new challengers, they have the potential to leverage their well-established brands, networks and scale to fight back and maintain their niche in the financial services industry well into the new era of open banking.