Digital technology is reshaping payments, loans, insurance, and wealth management, a process that the COVID-19 pandemic has expedited. Most financial institutions have adopted mobile applications to provide better service and convenience to their customers in recent years. With increasing competition and advances in mobile technology, banks are looking for innovative methods to offer their consumers the best possible experience. That is where super apps come into play.
Our last blog discussed the three steps that we believe are the most effective way for a retail bank to embrace the super app approach. The three steps were Build, Optimise, and Monetize.
The first step in any infrastructure project, such as a theme park or resort, is to get the real estate in order. The term “real estate” in the digital world refers to the primary digital channels provisioned for the end-user. While some banks already provide internet and mobile banking, we can assist them in transitioning to a more native mobile experience and responsive and progressive web applications for internet banking. That is the first level of landscaping for the primary digital channels we enable. We can also take things a step further by introducing Gen 2 channels, such as voice assistants (Alexa), wearable apps, and more.
With the orchestration and transaction layer, we empower the bank to manage products and services across various channels, maintain consistency in the experience, and facilitate seamless handoffs. That also allows the relationship manager to see the entire bank-customer relationship in one place, minimizing wait times during customer service calls, reducing channel integration points, and providing convenience to the relationship manager, among other things. It also encompasses two critical, high-ROI features: open APIs and hyper-personalization up to N=1 if necessary.
Now that the build and fundamental optimization are complete, we focus on hyper-optimizing areas where banks can yield maximum digital ROI. Those goals can be met with the help of machine learning-driven optimization, which will power the various modules to attract, activate, and retain customers. Such modules also provide incentives for customers to refer their peers, family, and friends, making them eligible for curated loyalty-rewards benefits. We may also assist banks in experimenting with building solid minimum viable products (MVPs) for a new product or service, ensuring faster time to market. That is also an opportunity for banks to demonstrate their expertise in proposing the right financial product to the right customer in the right situation, enabling the bank to evolve into a trusted financial advisor by revealing to the consumer where they are falling short on their financial goals. From an administrator’s perspective, most of them are setups and automation that make banks more agile, technology-centric, and capable of making swift course corrections.
Now that the bank has built and optimized its customer service delivery, the next step is to share its rich customer data with peer banks, fintech partners, and other enterprises. That helps third parties pre-qualify customers with an additional level of KYC. That is the future, assuming your country’s regulator permits it. If that is the case, we provide technology to help the bank monetize its APIs (with customer consent) in the same way that Facebook and Amazon monetize their data for the outside world. With the proliferation of Neo Banks, it is currently a choice. Still, it will become a necessity soon if traditional banks are to maintain competitiveness and occupy the catbird seat.
You will have a banking theme park at the end of this exercise, helping consumers make prudent financial decisions and be rewarded and delighted in the process. We, at Comviva, make it a streamlined, staggered, efficient, and cost-effective approach for banks to undergo this transition – from a bank to a super app-driven powerhouse using our proven mobiquity® Banking Suite, emphasizing experience, engagement, and enablement. Our suite leverages functionalities such as experience automation, multi-channel availability, contactless payments, and more, enabling banks to build robust, customer-focused, and results-oriented digital strategies.
