IBM study sets out five emerging trends to reshape global banking.
IBM recently released a study revealing the key trends and innovations that will define the global banking industry in 2015.
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The study, Banking 2015: Defining the Future of Banking, forecasts trends in banking to offer insight into the competitive forces that bankers will face in the next 10 years. The study also spotlights the emerging business and technology innovations and societal trends that will propel and shape the industry's transformation.
The survey was conducted by IBM's strategic research unit, The Institute for Business Value, and revealed five key trends that will determine market success in 2015:
* Customers take control. Customers will be smart, informed and savvy users of financial services. They will only be interested in service providers that can meet their very specific individual needs.
* Specialized niche competitors. Market consolidation will continue, making the mega banks even bigger. But they will face swarms of nimble competitors including community banks, industry specialists and non-bank banks that specialize in providing specific services. Partner-competitor relationships will arise.
* A new workforce. The need for productivity and efficiency will create new labour and work practices. But there will also be intense competition to attract and retain talent.
* Regulated transparency. The need to comply with globally enforced standards of transparency and accountability will force the adoption by banks of integrated, enterprise-wide systems and processes.
* Sharply focused technology. The enabler of all this change will be technology that supports rapid, accurate decision making and greater operational flexibility and efficiency. The successful specialists will be those who can track and analyze specific customer needs and speedily meet them with profitable, reliable products.
Rusty Wiley, lead partner for IBM's Global Banking Practice, says the study shows what banks must do now to stay competitive over the next 10 years. "By 2015, we will live in an intensely customer-centric market that is dominated by global mega banks and densely populated by specialist financial services providers. Fierce competition, global regulation and technology will reshape bank and non-bank structures."
According to Sunny Banerjea, global banking leader for the Institute for Business Value, each bank must decide on a strategy that fits its customers' needs. "Banks will need special strategies to cater to a far more discerning--and controlling--customer. Innovative approaches to business design, customer service, workforce management and IT will be critical to banks' future success.
"Banking customers will demand more advocacy, personal security and control in their banking relationships," Banerjea says. "Banks will source products and services from many specialized and best-in-class service providers, including independents and other banks providing white-label products and services. Innovation in products, processes, relationships and business models will be the primary path to sustainable growth."
For more information visit www.ibm.com.
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