Bank 4.0: Banking Everywhere, Never at a Bank

by Brett King

There are five core characteristics of Agile banks: Table 1: The core characteristics of Agile banks. Customer First Mission Broad Revenue Generation Capability Rapid Product and Distribution Prototyping and Learning Centre Opti-channel and Digital Omni-channel Agile banks don’t try to fit their existing product suite and processes to customers. They’re constantly adapting and trying new approaches to engage. Agile banks get most of their revenue, do most of their cross-sell and upsell via digital. They’ve re-architected the organisation to minimise fixed costs like branch networks, and focused on variable costs where performance-based budgeting drives outcomes. Distrubution is extremely flexible. Channel decisions take days and weeks, not months to play in terms of launching new initiatives. Test, Test, Launch, Fail, Retry. The risk adverse nature that leads to bulletproof testing of new initiatives is replaced by the concept of alpha and beta releases to customers. This is a huge one for traditional players and regulators to get over. Phygital strategies, or optimising physical and digital channels to work in concert, is pretty key for future agility. Reliance on one channel for any core activity is a constraint Agile banks don’t want—they watch customer behaviour and respond accordingly.