Mr. Brett King, globally renowned author of the book “Bank 2.0” recently spoke about the future of banking at a forum organized by BancNet, the country’s largest electronic banking consortium at the Dusit Hotel in Makati. The forum on the theme “Enhancing Cross-Channel Customer Experience” was attended by executives of BancNet member banks and industry partners.
King, an acknowledged expert on wealth management, customer experience and retail channel distribution strategy, said that banking is no longer the sole domain of banks because of the emergence of new technology.
“Technology is changing the way we do banking and we have seen a rapid behavioral shift among bank customers in the last decade,” he continued.
King cited the shift towards the Internet and mobile phones for banking transactions of people on the move. He focused particularly on the mobile phone as the “future platform for payments”. A few of the things a customer will be able to do with his phone according to King, are swipe his credit card, transfer funds to another i-phone subscriber, and determine the location of ATMs.
He mentioned US bank Chase as having introduced a service that enables customers to deposit checks while on the move.
On the Internet, King said the social networking sites have the potential of becoming a lending platform without banks involved.
Aside from the telcos, other non-bank entities are taking over banking functions such as Octopus, a smart card issuer in Hong Kong, King reported.
He also predicted that as issued checks have dramatically diminished in the U.K., these will be obsolete by 2018.
King stressed that the future of banking is “all about behavior”, that is, understanding how bank customers behave and why they need a banking service as well as anticipating their behavior. “The future of banking is about sending the customer the right message at the right point in time”, he added.
King is an industry advisor for Huffington Post (Business News) and is a consultant for leading global financial services companies and businesses on improving customer interaction.
