Industries are being shaped today by disruptive technology and consumer expectations for simple and convenient experiences. One of the industries most dramatically impacted is financial services, as can been seen by the rise of online only banks. According to recent studies, the number of bank visits per month for average customers has fallen more then 90% since 2000. Smartphones are now the main resource for banking, offering customer anytime, anywhere access to their finances. Traditional corporations are looking for ways to differentiate as the younger generations (also known as the Millennial Generation or Generation Y) don’t think their bank offers anything different than any other bank.Add paragraph text here.

Companies that are gaining momentum in the market are those who understand the power of simple, personalized, quick transactions done anytime, anyplace, anywhere. Most Millennials prefer new financial offerings from online giants such as Amazon, Apple, PayPal instead of their own bank. Consumer expectations in online banking are changing fast, and are not being shaped by established banks. Instead, they are being shaped by mobile technology behemoths such as Apple, Google and Samsung. Consequently, a blossoming FinTech industry has emerged that is changing the core definition of banking.

Established financial services companies are responding to this shift in consumer expectations by investing heavily into fast, mobile, immediate transactions. Banks are taking their mobile offerings to the next stage with fingerprint, voice and any other biometric authentication. Some early adopters are serving their customers in innovative ways through wearables, such as the Apple Watch, with apps that have money management features, enabling customers to understand their spending at a glance, from their wrist.Add paragraph text here.

Beat your competitors

The power of quick, personalized, contextual transactions is transforming the experiences that financial institutions must give to their customers. Financial services institutions who can harness the power of the new consumer experience for business will ultimately deliver better services to their customers and beat their competitors in the market.

Agility is key

Delivering simple, personalized, quick transactions for customers is far easier for new companies and less regulated industries than for large, established banking and financial institutions. While banks have market traction and an established customer base, they have to deal with many legacy applications, complex processes, and a large workforce. The very things that give these institutions might and scale make it difficult for them to be agile and customer focused.

Regulation is slowing down innovation

Beyond the typical complexities of modernizing legacy systems, financial services institutions must also meet stringent data privacy and confidentiality requirements. Companies out of compliance are fined for misusing customer data and putting customer funds at risk. As a result, financial institutions are investing, dedicating resources, and retooling operations to meet these regulations.

This means, however, that these resources and funds are spent on compliance and maintenance rather than innovative new mobile offerings.

Strict regulations limit banks to embrace new technologies, as new and innovative technologies require extensive security and compliance reviews. Banks must overcome substantial infrastructural challenges, and reconcile consumers’ appetite for ease of use with greater security.

On the other hand, FinTech companies can often build products and services outside of the compliance, regulatory, governance and legacy IT system burden that the existing banks face.

Recognizing how poor customer experience is jeopardizing the company’s viability, many financial services companies have made customer experience the top priority. They all want to be number one for customer service, trust and advocacy. To that end, the companies are undertaking massive business transformation initiatives to create a “stronger, simpler” business.

In addition to consolidation, companies are investing heavily into usability and the customer journey. They are enabling their legacy applications with mobile security and customer identity management into simple, personalized, mobile experiences, targeting the customer journey that will have the biggest impact on the bottom line.

Aegon Netherlands is one of the first insurance companies who has responded quickly to changing consumer expectations. To improve customer experiences and speed up internal processes, Aegon embarked early on an initiative to simplify, personalize, and mobilize its offerings through mobile apps and dedication customer identity management. Like other financial services institutions, remaining competitive and winning in the market requires winning on customer experience. Interactions must be consistently simple, personal, and quick. Aegon recognized this and invested heavily into digitization initiatives to transform both customer-facing applications and those that enable employees to serve customers.

Forward-looking companies like Aegon embrace mobile strategies to realize digital transformation and reap the benefits from the apps they deploy. These apps often integrate new, mobile-specific data and authorization types that require back-end support. Onegini provides a solution for creating secure mobile consumer apps at a fraction of the time and cost of in-house development.