As digital banking takes precedence over traditional brick-and-mortar services, it is important for financial institutions to prepare for the wave of digital natives entering the market known as GenZ. GenZ consumers have grown up in an entirely digital world and expect digital banking to be secure, fast, and convenient. To meet this need, financial institutions must modernize their digital transaction capabilities and offer a personal user experience that prioritizes convenience and security. Offering digital features such as digital account opening, secure digital payment options, instant account access, and 24/7 customer service, among others, can help financial institutions stay competitive with new generations.

What Instant Gratification Means for Financial Institutions

GenZ has grown up accustomed to not needing to wait to complete transactions. They have experienced an era where access to digital purchases and products is painless, instant, and happens at the click of a button. That means they will be less than thrilled to need to head to a branch or even have to download an app to open a bank account. Businesses are encouraged to focus on four experience components to attract and retain Gen Z consumers. Experiences should be instant, intuitive, convenient, and mobile. Something as simple as downloading an app is trust that needs to be earned prior to taking that sort of real estate in their devices.

The GenZ generation’s comfort with technology and need for instant gratification has caused many traditional financial models to become antiquated. To successfully cater to GenZ, financial institutions must adopt digital banking solutions that meet their demands. Current digital banking options should include digital onboarding, immediate feedback, comprehensive chat support options, a mobile-friendly app, and digital customer identification processes to ensure that they can receive financial services quickly and securely. By leveraging digital banking solutions, financial institutions can easily accommodate these digital natives’ needs for immediate access to their finances.

What Are GenZs Looking for in a Financial Institution?

GenZ users tend to look toward trusted brands to help them start their financial journey. These types of users generally prefer to bank with one institution and prefer digital or mobile interactions to in-person ones. GenZ users usually have fintech accounts, sometimes even as their primary bank. Offering a great digital account opening option is highly attractive to GenZ users, especially if it offers a seamless experience. Digital banking that keeps users from having to take extra steps to join the institution, upload documents, or manage accounts is a great way to attract new customers of this demographic.

Why is digital onboarding important to GenZ?
Within the next ten years, GenZ and Millennials, known as digital natives, are expected to account for over 58% of the workforce – this means they are on the way to becoming the primary customer base of financial institutions. Digital onboarding provides comprehensive digital authentication methods that enable prospective customers to set up digital accounts without delay and easily track their assets with one click of a button. This enables GenZs to access the financial services they need no matter where they are located, providing them with a level of convenience not found in traditional banking experiences.

GenZ users are digital natives and therefore look for primarily digital banking solutions to meet their financial needs. They value ease of use, good customer service, and transparency. Financial institutions need to prioritize digital banking options that appeal to this particular demographic. These users look for real-time feedback on their money management progress and digital communication that is modern and fuss-free. Digital account opening, mobile access, and technology solutions that create an efficient and positive banking experience are very important to GenZ users. They also tend to prize community-building initiatives supported by the bank more so than traditional banking products and services. Financial institutions must recognize these attributes in order to truly engage the GenZ customer base and meet their financial needs.

Key Takeaways:

Digital Bank Account Opening Solutions

IgniteConnex is a digital banking solution that’s both secure and user-friendly. Our intuitive solutions are designed by bankers with decades of experience, making them well-suited for institutions that want to digitalize their account opening process and appeal to digitally savvy users. By streamlining the new customer onboarding process, we can help financial institutions jumpstart their digital transformation journey and enhance the core customer experiences. Schedule a Demo to learn more!

The majority of consumers, about 81%, say they want more self-service options, but most businesses believe only 60% of customers would be interested. This 21% gap in understanding consumers’ needs means businesses are not focusing enough on increasing self-service options to meet demand. It’s no surprise that customers have come to expect digital-first customer self-service from their financial institutions. And fortunately, many financial institutions are rising to the challenge of the self-service revolution and taking steps to develop modern digital strategies that provide customers with streamlined service delivery, easily accessible products, and efficient digital banking platforms.

Depending on your institution’s offerings and goals, this could look like anything from automated customer service chatbots, digital onboarding solutions, or even complete digital banking platforms for both business and personal accounts. As with any digital strategy, success will depend on regular innovation, evolution, and customization to meet changing customer needs.

What is the self-service revolution?
The self-service revolution has been an ongoing digital transformation effort over the last decade, as customers increasingly have moved from face-to-face and telephone-based customer service interactions toward digital-first customer self-service models.

Top 3 Areas for Financial Institutions to Offer Better Self-Service Options

Better Chat Support Options

Chat is quickly becoming the preferred digital channel for customers of financial institutions across the globe. Despite this, only a shocking 31% of businesses offer chat as a primary digital-first customer self-service option. While this may provide short-term cost savings, there could be long-term implications of not meeting customers’ digital needs and preferences. Offering digital options like chat support is essential to meet the changing customer needs and digital expectations of financial institution customers.

An emerging channel for digital customer self-service is accessing self-service options or chat support through social media. Sadly, many are not yet offering service on this digital touchpoint due to the lack of internal resources or the fact that their digital presence is not optimized for customer support. Companies find themselves stumped by needing to provide excellent digital customer service while unable to ensure that the level of service they are providing is up to standard. It remains a challenge for many, but those who do make an effort to stay up-to-date on digital technology can certainly be rewarded down the road.

Improved Digital Account Opening Solutions

Banks and other financial institutions should prioritize digital-first customer self-service options to ensure quality and efficient service. One avenue to consider is offering digital account opening, such as digital identification and digital document scanning. This will assist customers with instant access to services without waiting in long lines or having their queries answered slowly over the phone.

Digital-first customer self-service offers numerous advantages for customers, from quick, efficient transaction processing to round-the-clock availability and enhanced security for online financial services. Banks and financial institutions that implement digital customer self-service can then focus on addressing other customer needs that can’t be addressed without a representative quickly and efficiently.

Full-Service Mobile Applications

It is increasingly important for financial institutions to provide digital-first customer self-service options via mobile. Apps offer financial services providers an ideal way to meet customers exactly where they are in their daily lives – on their phones. This digital convenience increases customer satisfaction, inspires trust and loyalty in the brand, and ultimately drives revenue.

With a full-service app, customers are granted access to a vast range of services, including the ability to open an account and even manage deposits, investments, and loans. Providing an interface that makes managing your finances easier for customers is beneficial not only for them but also for the financial institution. Having digital tools that promote convenience and reliability provides a more satisfying customer experience which will ultimately lead to positive outcomes in business growth.

Key Takeaways:

Digital Account Opening Solution

By implementing a digital account opening solution like IgniteConnex, banks, credit unions, and other financial service providers can increase their self-service options and onboard new customers much faster. We can help your digital transformation by enhancing the account opening experience and digital onboarding process for new customers. Access a cost-effective solution that can offer your financial institution enhanced security, a good return on investment, and scalable growth. Schedule a Demo to learn more!

Technology has given us the ability to access information and services almost instantly. When Netflix started, you had to go online, select the movie you wanted to watch, and then wait for the DVD to come to your house. Now you can open the app, choose from hundreds of movies and TV show options, and start watching instantly. Can’t find what you’re looking for on Netflix? You can probably locate it on one of the dozens of other available streaming platforms and access it on your device just as quickly. This brings us to what boosts all financial institution’s margins – a user experience that is simple enough to maintain the attention of easily distracted consumers.

The ability to get what we want instantly has turned into an expectation in all areas of our lives as consumers. Opening an account using traditional banking methods is anything but instant. If your financial institution cannot offer an onboarding process that meets customer demands for instant gratification, they’ll be looking for another financial institution that can. You can boost your financial institution’s margins by offering customers a quicker, easier onboarding process through digital account opening technology.

Instant Gratification: Technology and Patience

Thanks to the internet, you can now have almost the entire wealth of human knowledge at your fingertips in seconds. Unfortunately, seconds may still be too long for some users. According to a study by UMass Amherst, most viewers will abandon an online video if it takes more than 2 seconds to load.

Ironically, our instant access to so much information has also eroded our patience for actually absorbing information. The Nielsen Norman Group found that most users leave a webpage after having only visited long enough to read about 20% of the text displayed on that page.

The nature of the internet is that if users cannot get what they’re looking for fast enough from one website, they will quickly abandon it and find a site with a better response time. This pattern has gone beyond webpage loading times and started to impact almost every aspect of life, including banking.

Customers are always looking for the fastest, most efficient, most convenient way to manage their money. If their current institution doesn’t offer what they’re looking for, they are not hesitant to switch to a bank or credit union with better, faster online options.

Online Account Opening vs. Traditional Account Opening

One of the ways to offer your customers a faster experience than other banks is by enabling them to open an account completely online. In-person account opening is something that people just don’t have time for anymore. First, they have to schedule a time to go into their local branch’s location during normal business hours. Then, they have to gather up their relevant identifying documents and bring them to the meeting. Once there, they will be asked to read and sign stacks of paperwork. The process is anything but instant.

Online account opening can boost your financial institution’s margins because it allows your customers to open an account on their schedule from any location that is convenient to them. Improving your customer’s experience doesn’t end with just offering a digital onboarding process—you need to remove as much friction from that process. If you ask them to fill out lengthy forms on their phone or provide pictures of documentation they don’t have in reach, they are more likely to abandon their application. 

An excellent digital account opening solution that effectively boosts your financial institution’s margins should not just be your in-person application converted into a digital form. You need to streamline the whole process so that customers can have an open account with money in it at your institution within a matter of minutes.

Customer Satisfaction and Your Profit Margin

Speed is one of the top-three factors in ensuring customer satisfaction when it comes to online banking. Consistently satisfied customers become loyal, long-term customers, and they are more likely to recommend your institution to others.

How can a financial institution profit through instant gratification? 

Today’s customers don’t want to wait for anything; they want satisfaction right now. By offering a digital onboarding process that supports instant account opening, you can entice more customers to do their banking with you.

A low-friction, user-friendly online account opening system satisfies your customers’ need for instant gratification in banking services, helps you acquire new customers, and brings more revenue, increasing your financial institution’s margins. When you generate more revenue, as long as your expenses stay the same, you increase your profit margin, and your institution experiences financial growth.

Key Takeaways:

 

The Best Digital Bank Account Opening Solution

IgniteConnex provides a secure, user-friendly digital bank account opening technology that makes digital onboarding easy for both you and your customers. We offer intuitive, secure solutions designed by bankers for banks.  We can help kickstart financial institutions’ digital transformation by enhancing the account opening experience and approval process for new customers. Access a cost-effective digital onboarding solution that can offer your financial institution enhanced security, a good return on investment, and scalable growth.  Schedule a Demo to learn more!

When it comes to upgrading or installing new technologies and solutions, the question your business always has to ask is whether the amount of time and money put into the new project will cost more than the new revenue generated. If the result is money lost, then it was a wasted venture.

Money made in relation to the money spent on new technologies, projects, or labor is called the return on investment, or ROI. A large return on investment can mean exponential growth for your company, while a negative ROI can spell disaster. If questions about the potential ROI are what is stopping your financial institution from making the transition to digital account opening solutions, it’s time to put your worries aside. Studies and evidence from banking companies across the country have consistently shown that the potential return on investment from digital account opening technologies is well worth the time and money invested into the transition process.

 

What is the ROI of investing in digital account opening solutions? 

Investing in digital account opening technology helps you attract more customers, keeps current customers highly satisfied and engaged, and saves your financial institution money that is usually wasted performing manual tasks.

 

Attract new customers who might otherwise not bank with you

Evidence points to a growing number of customers who prefer mobile banking over traditional banking. 89% of those surveyed by Insider Intelligence’s Mobile Banking Competitive Edge Study (2018) said they used mobile banking, up six points from the previous year. That included 97% of millennials and 91% of Gen Z, the majority of the future customer base in the next decades. The study also indicated that 64% of mobile users said they would research a bank’s mobile offerings before they opened an account and more than half said they would change banks if their current institution’s mobile experience didn’t stack up. 

Offering a robust and user-friendly mobile experience can help your institution stand out in a crowded market. If you can build a reputation for offering an enhanced, digital-first banking experience, former loyal customers of other banks or interested applicants who have never heard of you before may be persuaded to open accounts. More accounts mean more deposits and more revenue for your institution.

Keep new customers engaged

Research has shown that a user whose account was automatically approved is five times more valuable to your institution than a user who was manually approved. Your customer’s enthusiasm for banking with you will never be higher than the moment they decide to open an account. The faster you can get them from that moment to depositing money, the more sustained that engagement becomes. If they are placed through a manual review queue and not approved until a day later, they are no longer as excited and are likely to deposit a smaller amount of money.

Digital-first application processes, especially ones effectively designed to minimize friction, can have a new account opened within minutes of the customer deciding to start an application.

Save money on manual review processes

If you have a real person reviewing and approving applications, you have to pay them a salary to do so and pay for the resources that enable them to do that job. Manual review processes take longer than automatic ones, and as the saying goes: in business, time is money.

Digital account opening technologies rely on artificial intelligence and machine learning to vet and approve applicants automatically without the need for human interference. Computers and algorithms are far less likely to make mistakes than human beings, and in the financial industry, mistakes can end up costing your institution big. 

The benefits of digital solutions

While you need to invest money in order to implement a digital account opening technology into your current system, you will end up saving much more in the long run. How much money will you save? If financial institutions automate as little as 7% of all their operations, they could save between $4 billion to $12 billion.

Key Takeaways:

 

Unsure where to start when it comes to your bank’s digital transformation?

Start where your customers start—the account opening process. This is the best way to make a great digital first impression with customers and earn their engagement and loyalty from day one. IgniteConnex was designed by bankers for bankers to make your financial institution’s account opening processes as straightforward and user-friendly as possible. Our digital account opening solutions leverage your institution’s legacy systems to ensure a speedy, efficient implementation process.

With IgniteConnex, you can offer your customers a secure, low-friction application process. To learn more, Schedule a Demo with our team today.

“Social distancing” and “self-isolating” may have only entered into daily usage less than three years ago, but the transition to conducting our financial and economic activities without ever leaving our homes began well before the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2010, only about $165 billion worth of retail purchases in the U.S. were made over the internet. By 2020, that number had risen to more than $860 billion. Amazon alone saw its yearly sales increase over ten times in the same period. More and more customers have grown accustomed to being able to run their errands on their schedule and prefer access to digital account opening in retail branches.

Mobile banking apps have also made it possible for consumers to conduct most of their banking activities via their phones. And if there’s anything they can’t do simply by opening their bank’s app, over 80% of them wish that they could. Technology has made people more independent, and customers would prefer to solve their problems on their own without the help of a customer service representative, like access to digital account opening options in retail branches. Unfortunately, many banks are failing to keep up with the demand for customer self-sufficiency, and those who haven’t improved their digital solutions are starting to see themselves fall behind those who have.

Retail Banking

Retail banking is another term for consumer banking or personal banking. This is a separate service from corporate banking, although many institutions do handle both. Retail banking allows individual customers to manage their money, access credit securely, and make deposits. At a retail bank, citizens can conduct traditional banking activities such as opening checking and savings accounts, applying for mortgages, personal loans, and credit cards, and receiving deposit receipts.

Retail banks may be local community organizations, or they may be branches of larger national banks. In either case, retail banking aims to be a secure, one-stop location for individuals to take care of all their personal financial needs. While they once were the dominant institution in this market, they are starting to face stiff competition from fintech companies, many of which offer the same services but are completely digital. In order to retain their current customers, and maintain hope for attracting new ones, it is vital for traditional retail banks of all sizes to make the transition to offering well-rounded mobile and online services.

The Demand for Self-Service

Remember the statistic that 80% of customers would prefer more self-service options when it comes to their banking? 95% of banks said that they noticed a marked increase in customer demand for self-service technology but when surveyed, executives at banks across the country thought that number was closer to 60%. This demonstrates the disconnect between the need of self-service options, and awareness of this need in financial institutions. On average, the demand for these services increased by 37% between 2020 and 2021.

While it is clear that more than half of the population wants to be able to manage their finances without having to interact with a bank employee, a 20% gap between perceived demand and actual demand indicates that banks do not fully understand how highly they should be prioritizing the addition of more self-service options in their service offerings. Banking may be an essential service, but it is still a consumer market. When one vendor fails to meet market demands, customers look for other options that will fulfill their needs. Exposure to this type of potential loss of customers doesn’t just stunt a financial institution’s growth but can endanger the sustainability of the entire company.

Which Banks Are Growing, Which Are Falling Behind?

Almost 32% of the population—especially Gen Z “digital natives” who have come of age in recent years—prefer to avoid brick-and-mortar branches and conduct all their banking digitally. Between 25%-30% of customers between the ages of 21 and 41 have their primary checking account at a digital bank, and even 22% of consumers aged 42-56 have made the switch to fully digital banking solutions. The numbers are clear, financial institutions that provide digital services will continue to gain customers, while those who are resistant to fully digital solutions will continue to lose customers.

What does self-serve mean vs. traditional banking?
Self-serve vs. traditional banking is the difference between a customer’s ability to be fully self-sufficient in a retail branch or having to wait for a customer service representative in order to conduct their banking tasks. With in-branch self-service options, customers should be able to conduct all their banking like opening checking and savings accounts, applying for mortgages, personal loans, and credit cards, and receiving deposit receipts without needing to speak to anyone.

Traditional banking requires speaking to a representative and is subject to lengthy paper-based processes, or busy lineups. Offering in-branch self-serve options can help customers that choose to conduct their business in-branch have the option of skipping lengthy line-ups and being more self-sufficient with their banking, but continuing to have the option for representative support if needed.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

The IgniteConnex Solution

One way to jumpstart your institution’s transition to digital services is to provide an easy, efficient way for your customers to open a new account via digital means without ever having to contact a customer representative for help.

With IgniteConnex’s banker-designed digital account opening solution, you can say goodbye to time-consuming costly paper-based processes, and provide your customers with a quick, secure account opening experience. To learn more about IgniteConnex and start revolutionizing your financial institution today, schedule a demo with one of our representatives.

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