Financial services providers continue to invest in emerging technologies to support a ‘one-stop shop’ platform-based business model, one that offers a frictionless experience for customers, says Peter Ottermann, CTO of GhostDraft.
GhostDraft is a cloud-based solution designed to deliver advanced customer communications management capabilities.
Ottermann says the business case for service providers like banks is clear: they must digitise traditional processes to avoid becoming irrelevant.
“Everyone knows what businesses like Uber and AirBnB are – they are platforms that connect vendors who have something to sell with people who want to buy those goods and services. This platform concept marked a fundamental shift in the world of business because what was traditionally difficult has now become easy, fast and convenient,” says Ottermann.
He believes this is key because the modern consumer now expects and demands this type of frictionless experience.
“Banks are about as traditional a service as you can find, yet technology has enabled them to shift into the platform space. With the newer technologies that underpin platforms, banks can make services available to their customers in a more convenient manner, such as through web applications and mobile apps. With platforms, banks can aggregate trusted third-party service providers into the same interface so that customers do not need to look for these services elsewhere.”
Ottermann says the advent of web services hosted in the cloud and consumed using Web APIs has allowed additional services to be made available more readily on a common platform.
According to GhostDraft, general commercial service platforms can offer banking and banking-type services to their customers, “so banks that don’t shift into this realm will lose customers and be left behind”, Ottermann continues.
Shift from legacy
Ottermann says shifting can be a complex and difficult exercise, depending on what legacy infrastructure is in use.
“However, it can be implemented incrementally, starting small and expanding over time. It entails a shift of prevailing technology infrastructure to established cloud providers such as Amazon AWS and Microsoft Azure, among others, and re-skilling in-house staff accordingly.”
GhostDraft adds that customer communication management (CCM) is critical to successful shifting.
“Through the advent of digital platforms, customers are no longer communicating directly with people as frequently as they did in the past. However, these customers still want to feel like they have access to trusted and personalised quality information. So, it now becomes the role of the CCM system to keep the customer informed timeously and accurately, while also managing their expectations. It enables the platform to create a dialogue with a customer.”
Looking ahead, Ottermann suggests that young people don’t necessarily want to interact directly with people anymore, but they do want the convenience of being able to transact at any time that suits them.
However, they still want the level of trust that dealing with an actual person provides. It’s a delicate balance for service providers to decide when they can safely replace human interaction with technology, Ottermann concludes.
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