What if your financial institution was no longer competing with the bank down the street, working to entice customers with free checking and a user-friendly mobile app? What if your competitor was, instead, offering customers the opportunity to check balances with a swipe on a wearable device or was employing artificial intelligence (AI) to predict their spending behaviors and help them prepare financially for an upcoming month with extra expenses? These are examples of emerging technologies in your field. Is your infrastructure prepared to compete?
The network is no longer operating as a hub-and-spoke infrastructure with a neat perimeter firewall around it for safety. Your network is gaining complexity as emerging technologies demand more from it in terms of performance, data transmissions and the number of endpoints it’s handling.
It’s important to build a network infrastructure that’s positioned to support your current platforms and software, but you should also be evaluating your upcoming plans for remaining competitive. Financial technology is moving fast; is your network prepared? Take a look at three areas that will significantly impact networks for financial institutions:
The digital wallet: Consumers increasingly prefer to use a digital wallet for purchases over the traditional card method, because it offers better security and more convenience. Millennials tend to be early adopters of this technology, preferring to pay small bills with their smart phone or use an app to split payment with friends.
A digital wallet offers opportunities to banks, allowing them to use real-time data to send balance alerts or offer revenue-generating point-of-sale promotions to customers. The digital wallet also demands a network that is ready for a dramatic increase in data flow and leaves no room for latency.
Customer intelligence: Focus groups and surveys are no longer the vehicles helping banks understand customers. You’re using analytics to better understand what your customers do and want, and you’re likely beginning to predict what they want before they express that wish.
While greater customer intelligence allows banks to tailor solutions, it also signals a hyper-personalized era of banking where customers may demand such a customized product that demand escalates and loyalty falters as a general trend. There’s already been evidence of the emergence of one-click transfers, which allow a customer to switch all of their accounts and information to a new financial institution with little effort.
Your network will take on a different role than traditional bank infrastructure, enabling the movement of huge amounts of data in order to create financial products that are tailored to a customer’s exact needs.
Increasing cybersecurity complexity: From cloud solutions to multiplying endpoints with Internet of Things (IoT) devices, protecting the network is vastly different from a few years ago. IoT, in particular, adds layers of risk because of the increased number of endpoints to monitor. Data flowing to and from sensors can cause congestion in the network, affecting the performance of everything from video conferencing to streaming videos.
Is your network ready to handle emerging technologies in the financial industry? Ensure you have the infrastructure to support your digital future by contacting us at Tailwind. With high-speed broadband connectivity and our certified onsite technician support, your network will be ready for the future.