Banking Platform as a Service (BPaaS)

Historically, enterprise consumers have had to work two separate tracks when making financial decisions associated with their purchasing desires. These tracks are most often intertwined. 

For example, if a customer wants a loan for an automobile, they must first secure a loan for what they believe the purchase price will be, then position the loan to the dealership. At that point, the car may or may not be within the approved loan amount and even if it is, there are still questions to be answered and other conditions to be met. 

These types of complexities, exacerbated by the emotional stress of the loan itself and the entire qualification process, can leave customers in buying paralysis. Such purchasing decisions can be streamlined while improving customer experience (and the bank’s revenue profile) by driving customers to corporate banking customer relationships

Market Conditions

Traditionally, banks excel at qualifying both corporate and retail customers through analytics, risk scores, and financial profiles. At Syniverse, we have seen digital transformation by our banking partners on a global scale to keep up with ever-changing consumer habits and preferences. This process was expedited by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Banks are now investing in mobile engagement more than ever as they look for new, unique revenue streams to fund these newly adopted channels.

Why Invest in Mobile Engagement

Statistics show that most smartphones users (estimated at 3.2 billion) check their phones, for one reason or another, every 12 minutes. 10% of the smartphone user population checks their phone every four minutes for mobile application and messaging specifically.

A main investment for banks is their mobile application. For banks, this allows customers to transact “on the go,” which is a critical function, as it extends purchasing decisions 24/7, often without the engagement of direct bank resources. 

This is clearly a core need, but there are some challenges:

• There were 204 billion mobile app downloads in 2020. 
• Financial applications only account for 2.45% of that total. 
• Mobile applications are siloed to the enterprise. 
• The average mobile application retention percentile drops week over week with an average weekly use of nine total mobile applications per smartphone user. 

In short, customers are experiencing mobile application fatigue and are frustrated by the siloed experience. Augmenting the traditional mobile application approach with non-application based mobile engagement solutions, banks can open new dialogs with their customer (where appropriate), break down walls, extend their reach for corporate customers, and drive a win-win-win solution for the total ecosystem.

How Mobile Engagement Can Improve Revenue and Customer Satisfaction

Non-application based mobile engagement solutions enable banks to start a conversation with a customer and direct them to a desired endpoint. These endpoints can be internal, such as a mobile application to authenticate, or can direct to a qualified partner to complete an engagement. Moreover, non-application based mobile engagement solutions can be flexible, often transacted over the preferred mobile engagement channel of the end user.

Referring to our automobile purchasing example, mobile engagement enhances the customer’s experience and alleviates workload from the bank. Rather than simply receiving an automobile loan acceptance message, the customer instead receives a warm transfer to a corporate banking customers’ automobile collection. Using the details associated to the customer’s station at the bank and the approved amount, links to preferred automobiles are automatically recommended.

• Schedule a test drive with a local dealer.
• Start a conversation with sales.
• Or opt to hold that car.

These types of offerings powerfully enable banks to drive their customers through a seamless process of loan acquisition that, in turn, provides an automatic sales pipeline for their partners, increasing both the stickiness of the retail and corporate banking customer.

Non-Application Mobile Engagement Channels to Watch

Mobile engagement channels are not a one size fits all scenario and must be reviewed by country and by use case based on customer preferences. Based on summarized market conditions, common channels and uses are the following:

• RCS (Rich Communication Services)
  • RCS is an Android-specific, next generation solution offering application-like experiences built inside the same platform clients use today for text messaging. 
  • As of 2020, Android accounts for 71.22% of European mobile phones. 
  • Easily engages with chatbots, live agent handoff, videos, location sharing. 
  • Likely will be adopted by non-Android devices but no commitments have been made.
• WhatsApp
  • Device-agnostic but requires mobile application download. 
  • Up to 85% application penetration based on country in Europe. 
  • Chatbot enablement with preference on customer-initiated engagement. 
• SMS (Short Message Service)
  • Near 100% reach.
  • As high as 98% open rates, compared to 20% of all emails.

Summary

Enterprises are challenged with the prospect of engaging their users as habits are quickly shifting to a mobile-first preference. Additionally, navigating financial and organizational adjustments associated with COVID-19 layer in further complications. Banks are in a unique position to strengthen their corporate customers’ profile using mobile channels. By leveraging these channels, not only can banks enable their corporate customers to embrace the digital transformation, but they can also provide meaningful insights to guide buying behaviors and ultimately strengthen the relationships while improving their own revenue profile.

Additional information.

In the latest episode of Future Banking TV, Matt Tuck of NatWest Commercial Banking and Lorraine Twigg of Syniverse discuss ways for banks to enhance services for their corporate customers which enable corporates in turn to enhance services to their customers, consumers. Mobile engagement solutions enable creation of a new ecosystem involving banks, corporates and consumers