This article was originally published on PYMNTS.com on July 19, 2021.
Perhaps the only positive to come out of the pandemic is that it has expedited a digital transformation across nearly every industry. Just about every organization now doing business recognizes that if it wants to continue serving its customers, it must offer the digital tools they need.
This is great news for the financial services industry, which has been transitioning to a digital environment for years. The pandemic has simply forced the industry to put those digital efforts into overdrive. Most financial services organizations are now surgically focused on giving customers the digital tools they need to fully manager their financial lives.
It's also great news for consumers and small business owners, because they have long been asking for more secure, sophisticated and consolidated financial tools. Up until now, many in the industry have dabbled in offering real-time payments and digital banking. But post-pandemic, the industry can no longer afford to "dabble."
As a result, I foresee two pandemic trends becoming permanent fixtures in the post-pandemic economy.
First, large financial institutions (FIs) will embrace a philosophy that has fueled FinTechs for years: If you don't deliver on the expectations of today's digitally proficient customers, someone else will.
FinTechs have spent the last two decades moving at the speed of the consumer, developing and introducing financial tools powered by speed, choice and intelligence.
Large FIs now realize that if they want to remain relevant to their customers, they need to adopt that FInTech philosophy and relentlessly meet customer expectations.
Of course, some forward-thinking top-tier banking executives have been doing this for years. In the case of BillGO, we saw an opportunity years ago to improve the way consumers manage and pay their bills and subscriptions.
Our research confirmed that consumers were abandoning legacy bank bill pay products, because they failed to give consumers what they wanted: speed, choice and intelligence. So, we developed modernized bill pay solutions, and many leading FIs began working with us to deliver a better experience.
This brings me to the second pandemic-related trend that I believe is here to stay: More and more large FIs will collaborate with FinTechs to better meet the needs of their digitally savvy customers. Today's consumers expect elegant, secure, easy-to-navigate digital tools that empower them to fully manage their financial lives. Any many of today's leading FinTechs can point to a successful track record of delivering on those expectations. FIs know this, and they also know that over the last 18 months, consumers and business owners have come to rely on digital tools to manage their lives.
Post-pandemic, that genie is not going back in the bottle. We're entering an era of unprecedented collaboration between FIs and FinTechs, and it will be consumers and small business owners who benefit the most from this collaboration.