Top Trends in Banking and Financial Services

The banking and financial services industries are continually evolving to meet the needs of businesses and consumers, who have shifted from visiting brick and mortar banks in-person to doing most of their banking online. These shifts will continue to occur as time passes, so consider the following changes that are expected to evolve throughout the decade in the banking and financial services industry.

Mobile-First Transactions

Banks are meeting customers where they are, delivering the ability to handle almost all banking and financial services via a mobile format. Not only do apps allow consumers to deposit checks, make stock trades, check balances, and pay bills, but they also give people access to their account security functions.

Giving customers the option of having digital banking services and mobile wallet enhancements allows them to feel like their banks are open 24/7, whereas, in the past, banks had to be visited only during working hours.

Enhanced Security

Banks are using tools like artificial intelligence that looks for outliers to ensure that fraud can’t happen in the increasingly digital world. These types of programs allow financial service organizations to act immediately when fraud is suspected, and customers can be alerted immediately of potential issues.

In addition, banking services are stepping up the cybersecurity programs they use to prevent larger-scale attacks and to keep customers’ finances well protected so hackers and other scammers aren’t able to penetrate banking systems. Financial services firms have such systems as two-step authentication and instant fraud alerts to ensure that fraud does not occur.

Artificial Intelligence Gains Steam

The use of AI in the banking services world goes far beyond banks’ ability to offer chatbots on their home pages. AI is used in concert with tools like blockchain and big data to ensure safe, fast, and transparent transactions that are secure and well protected. In the future, banking could increasingly take place via voice transactions using assistance tools like Alexa and Siri.

Outsourcing Financial Services

More businesses are beginning to outsource their financial services to save time and ensure that their transactions are taking place compliantly and securely. When businesses use a financial outsourcing company, the business is still technically the bank’s customer, but their transaction-level activities are being handled by the outsourced financial firm so the business owner can free up time to handle more important responsibilities.

Use of Big Data

Both financial services firms and their customers are utilizing big data to help them make financial decisions. In some cases, this means using data to forecast the future of cash flow and financial transactions, while in others it may mean evaluating and predicting when large expenses are expected to arise. By utilizing the data available to them, banks and businesses can get a clearer view of their overall financial picture.