In a world where digital solutions are transforming industries at a breakneck speed, Canadian banks appear stuck in a bygone era.
Customers today expect more than just online banking portals and mobile apps with basic functionalities. They desire intuitive, user-friendly experiences that cater to their needs in real time. Features such as personalized financial insights, instant loan approvals, and integrated investment tracking are no longer luxuries—they are necessities. Unfortunately, many Canadian banks are lagging in these areas, forcing tech-savvy customers to seek alternatives.
While fintech startups and even some international banks have embraced cutting-edge technologies like AI-driven customer service, blockchain for secure transactions, and seamless mobile banking, many of our domestic institutions remain hesitant. This reluctance is puzzling, especially in a country known for its strong tech ecosystem and high rates of smartphone adoption.
According to a study by JD Power, customer satisfaction with banking applications and websites is stagnant, and only a few customers are using features like virtual assistants, alerts, and budgeting tools. This hesitancy towards fully adopting digital banking does not stem from a lack of interest in technology but rather from a gap between the tools provided and customers’ needs and preferences.
As traditional banks such as TD begin to shift towards offering more tech-focused products and services, they can learn key lessons from the fintech industry to avoid setbacks and ensure customer adoption in digital banking.
Understanding customer needs
Enhancing customer engagement begins with listening to the needs of your customer base. It’s important to thoughtfully consider: what do customers actually value in their user experience? Understanding the customer journey and identifying the problem that needs to be solved is a key aspect of a customer-centric approach. What better way to understand the customer journey than to actually speak with your customers and the staff that deal with customers directly?
Too often, the people in banking who are coming up with product ideas or technology roadmaps are not in proximity to the customer, and the result is less than engaging products.
Even in today’s digital age, traditional banking services often still require in-person visits, which require booking an appointment and using a home printer to print and sign documents, posing a problem for younger generations. This lack of access provides the landscape for fintech businesses to offer solutions that can offer convenient, alternative solutions for Canadians who prefer to do their banking or access credit from the comfort of their own home, completely over the phone or by text message.
Consistent enhancements
When possible, companies should avoid year-plus-long development and deployment timelines. As often as possible, the approach to new technologies in digital banking should be to get a product to market as quickly as possible. The learning really begins when the product or tool is deployed and in the hands of customers. Once you have a product or tool live, it’s important to implement consistent feedback loops to gather and utilize customer input for ongoing service enhancements.
Throughout this process, it’s imperative to remain in close contact with the customer. Too often, the people thinking of feature improvements have never actually spoken with a real user. Regularly updating and refining products, services, and processes based on customer feedback and market trends is an effective way to keep customer satisfaction levels high and maintain a competitive edge in the market.
Additionally, leveraging predictive analytics to foresee and meet customer needs proactively, along with providing timely and effective customer support across multiple channels, are essential components of a customer-centric strategy and provide a method of consistently enhancing the customer experience.
Streamlining customer engagement
Innovative technology also ensures operational efficiency. Finding ways to continuously find efficiencies through innovations like custom machine-learning algorithms to automate processes is an effective way to streamline the user journey. For example, at Spring Financial, we’ve developed a proprietary system that scans user-submitted IDs and provides real-time feedback to our agents.
Another tool we use is a categorization engine that automatically reads bank statements, calculates debts and income, and builds an internal borrower profile to streamline the process of getting a personal loan – all in real time. By automating approvals, we’ve significantly increased fully automated transactions, from 5% to 30% over the last year, meaning nearly a third of our total originations have no staff involved in the process of obtaining a financial product.
The path forward
It’s clear there is a disconnect between digital banking tools and the customer experience. Fintechs are built around the customer’s journey and can serve as a useful resource for how to innovate banking solutions that actually translate to user experience. As a new age of banking emerges and we see more technological adoption by the Big Five, it’s important to continue to place customers first to create digital banking solutions that are not only advanced but truly transformative. If we commit to a customer-centric approach, together, we can shape a future where digital banking is embraced by all.
Tyler Thielmann is the President and CEO of Spring Financial.
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