Technology has continued to evolve and change the way that businesses operate. One industry that will greatly benefit from customised software solutions is the financial services sector.
This is especially true for many Australian financial businesses, which have seen SME banking fail to evolve as quickly as retail banking. This means that many companies in this sector have an opportunity to provide products and services which will address this dissatisfaction.
Some financial services providers have already begun using software to successfully compete with (and in many cases beat) their competition.
Here are a few ways that financial services providers are using software to compete:
Security
While the open network technologies seen today allow for more flexible and faster operations, they’re also creating a fertile environment for hackers and cybercriminals. Threats continue to advance in diversity, complexity and volume, becoming powerful weapons that are wreaking havoc on financial institutions around the world.
Smart financial services providers are using software as a form of risk management, ensuring that they are protected from any attacks and that they keep their crucial customer data safe.
Customer Service
For many financial services providers, software improvements and upgrades are predominantly revolving around improving client intelligence and customer service. Much of this comes from a desire to move away from old legacy systems, with their associated operational headaches, inefficiencies and mounting costs.
Most financial institutions, regardless of size, will struggle with marketing at some stage. Marketing teams are often made up of people who are experts in launching campaigns and promotions, but will sometimes falter when it’s time to research and segment markets and therefore optimally target products.
Software and cloud providers can provide analytics and market research that allow financial services providers to obtain sophisticated analytics to target products to the best possible customers.
Customer needs are changing as they demand: a more personalised service, a better user experience, secure online banking and smooth and easy financial services. By tailoring products to their needs, financial services providers have an opportunity to meet these needs head-on.
Information
Financial services providers will usually find themselves processing huge amounts of paper documents, many of which will need to be kept safe for sixty years or more. These providers also need to ensure that they know how much storage they require (given the large number of documents they handle), and must always be able to guarantee quick access to this information.
Email archiving is becoming a popular solution, along with an input management system, and there are also specific data and document conversion solutions which can transform scanned documents into searchable and highly-compressed documents perfect for fast retrieval, and long-term archiving.
Exclusive Systems
Innovative solutions and systems are being created for many financial services providers in Australia. These types of solutions include automated loan underwriting systems, point of sale software, online mortgage industry news, and CRM solutions.
Often, these systems and software solutions have been custom developed to meet all of the unique needs of each individual business. Innovation is hugely important as future customers and clients have grown up with a smartphone in their hand, are remarkably tech-savvy, and expect efficient and contemporary options.
