It’s not just millennial customers banks are adjusting to today — it’s millennial employees.
With the emergence of new technologies, channels, and strategies, banking customers — not to mention working professionals in the financial world — have come to expect faster, smoother solutions and services from their financial institutions. For those in banking, this means an ever-evolving workload and the increased need for banks to provide the tools necessary to handle that work effectively.
Part of this trend, explains D+H Head of Product Management Sonya Crites, is the simple fact that much of the work force and consumer base is now comprised of millennials.
“They [millennials] are reaching the age where they’re moving into decision-making positions in finance,” Crites told Bank Innovation. “They’re working in roles as corporate treasurers, CFOs, and they bring their expectations from growing up in a digital age with them.”
Millennials, Crites explains, generally want greater interoperability between their accounting and banking systems, which makes things like API strategy, and the standardization of Payment API and the other aspects of omnichannel service more important than ever for financial institutions.
“Driving standardization is critical, as the interoperability between these services is a growing expectation. Banks certainly the benefit of it, as it allows them to really focus on what’s important,” said Crites, adding that though there is a “growing alignment, at least conceptually” to drive inoperability, it’s still a work in progress, with many in the finance world still holding on to their traditional views of APIs and other strategies.
According to Crites, providers are seeing things like ISO 20002 — a standard for data exchange between financial institutions — become more and more accepted across the globe, and other new aspects in banking solutions will grow from that acceptance. It’s becoming more and more crucial for banks to make sure they have what’s necessary to handle the urgency of consumer need, with financial institutions and service providers worldwide modernizing their solutions to provide customers with the fastest, most personal service.
Though Europe is currently passing legislation and regulations to make this type of omnichannel a requirement, such as the U.K.’s new mandate that banks must offer the capability for customers to see all of their accounts and manage their mortgage, retirement, and other finances through the mobile app, the market for these technologies in the U.S. is not yet regulated to that extent, a quality that “drives out the best solutions,” according to Crites.
“What we’re seeing here is a different approach in the U.S.,” said Crites. “We see an environment that is encouraging these regulations but not mandating them, so the market itself encourages innovation.”