Financial services industry rushes to automate processes in the aftermath of coronavirus

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• Financial services industry rushes to automate processes in the aftermath of coronavirus

Financial institutions are rapidly changing their business priorities in the wake of COVID-19, new data from Salesforce shows. The CRM giant surveyed nearly 2.800 insurance, retail banking and wealth management executives from around the world, and found that process automation had become the number one priority for many, rising from third on the list of priorities in 2019. It was closely followed by the improvement of the customer experience; no doubt motivated by the adverse effects on clients and their finances following the coronavirus pandemic. According to the results, only 27% of global customers consider members of the Financial Services Industry (FSI) to be completely customer-centric. Furthermore, only 23% of global customers felt that ISPs had handled the crisis to the best of their ability. Therefore, the researchers found that 72% of EWBs agree that improvements are necessary to improve customer well-being.

Autonomous finance

ISPs also largely agreed on how expansion of services in the wake of COVID-19 should be a priority. Some 62% said they would roll out more customer options in the near future, with much of the development tied to independent financing. This has been defined by Forrester Research as “algorithmic financial services that make decisions or act on behalf of a client”. The main findings of the 2020 survey repeatedly highlighted the need to automate financial processes. The report found that 86% of financial services executives in the UK and Ireland believed that autonomous finance would be essential in deciding which companies would become the best performing companies of the future. In fact, 90% of respondents to this year's survey said being the first to implement independent finance would give them a significant advantage over the competition.