As we enter 2023, the banking industry is focused on providing better digital banking experiences through new technologies, products, and partnerships. While new research indicates an urgent need for change, the question is whether banks and credit unions will make the necessary investments during times of economic uncertainty.
The banking industry is at a crossroads of digital transformation opportunities and challenges of uncertain economic reality. While the industry seems to understand what it takes to compete with other digital banking providers and meet the increasingly demanding needs of consumers, there is still hesitation to fully embrace the required changes to accelerate pace and scale.
In many cases, traditional culture becomes an obstacle to the necessary change for digital banking organizations. Fear of risk or focus on cost-cutting at some banks and credit unions limits the potential for digital banking transformation.
To determine the ranking of the top 10 trends and priorities for 2023, we provide a trend list determined by a group of industry-leading influencers and ask the global banking, credit union, and supplier community to provide their top three choices.
These trends and priorities reflect significant changes in prominence as compared to previous years. Unlike in the past, most organizations are simply modifying their previous strategies, and the entire industry seems to be significantly increasing focus on some key trends that will have long-lasting benefits and help organizations prepare more and more for the future. Other trends, such as friction elimination in the customer journey and improvement of multi-channel delivery, while still important, may not be as prominent as they were in the period following the Covid outbreak because they had already been addressed.
While the overarching theme of major trends is focused on digital banking transformation, the top priority for 2023 is improving the digital banking experience by eliminating friction.
Other significant shifts since 2021 include:
Expansion of digital product and payment capabilities (Increase from 26% to 39% for 2023) Application of big data, artificial intelligence, and advanced analytics (Decrease from 43% to 39% for 2023) Improvement of integrated multi-channel delivery (Decrease from 32% to 24% for 2023) Hiring and training new talent (Increase from 12% to 20% for 2023) Investment in innovation initiatives (Decrease from 28% to 17% for 2023) Cloud computing testing and usage ranks lower, likely because many organizations have already adopted many cloud computing solutions.
