Digital trends for... Financial Services

Based on our digital trend watch and experience with clients in the financial services industry, here are eight key trends we're observing:

1. Consumers expect to use financial software direct through their web browser, and perform immediate transactions online 24 hours a day. Software as a Service (SaaS) is becoming more common in financial services – global derivatives solution provider SuperDerivatives for example adopts a solely SaaS model for its products
2. Consumers have more choice about who they use for financial services, and have access to data about the relative benefits are between companies. Both businesses and individuals typically deal with a number of different companies to meet their needs, and switch more regularly than in the past
3. Leading financial service companies are providing live, historical and forecast data online that is both relevant and meaningful. The web is uniquely positioned to offer a personalised view on not just key financial data but on how it is interpreted and displayed
4. Successful companies in this industry are highly interoperable. Their data and transactions can work in conjunction with a variety of different systems and they are agile enough to adapt to changing market situations (e.g. mergers and partnerships, or responding to market gaps). Xero is an online business accounting package - they partner with a range of banks to seamlessly connect up with live bank data
5. Financial services companies are increasingly recognising the importance of building a strong brand and maintaining brand reputation online. In a highly competitive market, a perceived brand of trust, transparency and ethics helps to reduce doubt and increase customer retention. Particularly important for upcoming IPOs
6. User interfaces for financial systems have traditionally been quite complex, technical and data driven. Now, user interfaces and usability are becoming more valued in complex functional systems to increase their adoption and effectiveness
7. A growing number of companies are using digital channels to support risk management. For example, measuring risk from trends of historical transactions and current market conditions. As we have seen recently, high risk strategies can pay off in the good times, but can be disastrous in the bad
8. An emerging trend is to replace traditional B2C relationships with direct C2C or ‘P2P’. Zopa provides a means for people to replace the role of banks in lending. Betfair enables people to replace the role of bookmakers in betting.