To summarize the disparate but somewhat related trends described in this paper, Fiserv believes there will be four main areas of strategic focus for U.S. banks:
Business Growth – especially organic business growth. The successful financial firms of tomorrow will be those that extract maximum return from their existing customers – through wallet share gains. The three drivers for success will be the development of new, innovative products; product bundling to drive deeper relationships; and high quality, integrated customer service and service delivery. Whilst this is a rather obvious statement, winning is still all about delivering the right products to the right customers at the right time and place and at the right price.
Cost Management – instead of simply cutting expenses, the industry needs to look for ways to manage costs by defining improved business processes, further automating expensive functions and tasks, and facilitating the migration of customers to less expensive ways of interacting and transacting with their financial providers. That’s what we focus on at Fiserv for our Forces Reshaping the U.S. Financial Services Industry Page 9 of 9 clients. Basically, it’s about deriving greater efficiencies from the existing “physical assets” of the client institution such as infrastructure and delivery channels and helping clients make the right strategic investments in their businesses to attain these goals.
Asset Productivity – this isn’t simply about making sure that delivery and distribution channels and systems are productive. It is also about deriving greater efficiency and performance from the most valuable asset of all – employees. The industry needs to continue to drive positive cultural change so that employees are driven to find improvements and better ways to serve customers. On the other side of Asset Productivity, financial firms need to have their balance sheets working hard for them, which brings us to the fourth and final strategic area.
Risk Mitigation – the lowering of risk exposure by using technology to monitor and control credit and operational risk, to provide effective asset and liability management, and to provide the highest forms of data integrity and security for customers will be important key result areas for U.S. banks.
Each of the major trends described in this White Paper present unique challenges and opportunities for de novo banks. A greater focus on the customer and the competitive advantages to be gained from an integrated multichannel delivery approach require a more sophisticated, and in many cases more personalized, approach to product distribution and customer service.
And trends like consolidation and convergence provide opportunities for de novo banks to enter markets with compelling value propositions.
If the recent past is any indication of things to come, one prediction can be made with certainty – the future financial services marketplace will look dramatically different from that of the past. Tomorrow's financial services providers and consumers will be unlike those of today. So, too, will their product and service offerings. Industry players must take notice of these changes now and make the strategic choices necessary to position their organizations for future success.
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