What Banks Can Learn About Mobile From Fintech

The recent investment surge in fintech firms — $17.4B globally in 2016 — is a strong indicator that banks need to start looking at these upstarts not just as competitors, but also as a source of inspiration.

The desire to make financial transactions and education easier for individuals and SMBs is one of the key forces driving the fintech revolution. It’s no surprise, therefore, that the most successful fintech players focus so heavily on their mobile strategies.

As the industry moves in this direction, mobile should no longer be a concern just of the mobile or digital teams — mobile should now be a part of the overall corporate strategy. In fact, four out of five banking executives worry they will lose revenue to independent fintech firms. Further, 54% of millennials in a recent survey said that they would consider switching banks if the other bank had a better app.

The launch of Zelle, a peer-to-peer payment system that now counts dozens banks and credit unions as members, including the likes of Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase, demonstrates that executives understand both the threat and potential of fintech.

Despite recent innovation, banks still have a lot to learn from digital-first players when it comes to success in the mobile channel. As they learn and react, banking executives need to answer the following questions:

• How can we migrate more transactions away from the branch to our low cost digital channels (of which mobile is a growing piece)?
• How can we focus on mobile while still having an eye towards maximizing customer lifetime value?
• In which mobile strategies should we pour resources? Which will be detrimental?

Answering these questions and succeeding in the new mobile world requires agility and low-risk innovation through experimentation.

Drawing from our experience working with hundreds of mobile innovators across industries and countries, we’ve identified four strategies fintech players are using to drive mobile adoption and create amazing user experiences. We explain how these strategies help them create more compelling offerings, and how the ideas behind them can help drive your mobile innovation agenda too. We also discuss how banks can adopt an agile “fail fast” approach that fintech companies often employ.

Download our whitepaper today and learn more!