Banks will be looking closer to home for IT
Financial services work moving back to the UK represents a fresh channel opportunity, suggests Adam Ripley
Banks will soon be exploring cost-effective ways to bring operations back on shore as they strive to comply with regulations and satisfy liquidity requirements. And this drive for onshoring consultancy operations may be pronounced enough to reduce youth unemployment.
Financial services organisations will also be aiming to comply in more intelligent ways as EU banks gear up for Basel III. "Smart compliance" offerings will be a response to pressure to deliver business-focused change.
There will also have to be a rapid increase in the provision of services across mobile by banks. This will be needed to enable the banking industry to keep pace with other sectors as well as prevent them losing business to peer-to-peer payment providers such as PayPal.
These all represent opportunities for the IT channel.
More so-called digital natives will embark on careers at financial services companies in 2013. Banks will also start to realise the benefits of employing consultants with greater technological knowledge and fresh insight they can bring to business technology change programmes.
The financial services industry has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to mapping all the ways companies engage with their customers, and also how they use social media and other emerging technologies.
In terms of customer service, they are a long way behind sectors such as retail.
The financial services industry has stayed in recovery, although there have been setbacks. Banking scandals, spiralling regulatory requirements and massive legislative changes in the insurance industry kept them on the back foot during the past year.
This year, banks will steady themselves, looking to understand the outlook in terms of regulation and compliance before beginning to rebuild their reputations and improve customer loyalty. In addition, they will start to get their ducks in a row where infrastructure and systems are concerned.
Channel players should also pay attention to the transformation of the insurance space. Insurance tends to follow banking with regards to mobile services, digital communications and developments in customer service. Mobility presents such firms with an opportunity to build strong customer relationships while combating consumers' increased ability to compare different offerings online more easily.
In financial services, SaaS and cloud are increasingly accepted, with IT positioned as a commodity service for business customers. CIOs will increasingly deliver the IT service while the business itself will start to own the end-to-end change process.
Adam Ripley is chairman of Certeco