Like many other fields, the banking industry is working hard to provide a better customer experience (CX). The importance of CX can’t be overstated in today’s market, given changes to consumer expectations in recent years. These changes have been brought on by the convenience of hyper-responsive companies like Amazon and Zappos, which consistently offer seamless browsing, purchasing, and delivery.
Given that so much banking activity now takes place online, financial companies that want to offer a similar experience must do it through their automated banking solutions. While standard solutions may be appropriate for some institutions, others may require specialized features that address the specific needs of their customers. Delivering these features is one of the benefits of custom banking solutions.
Here we explain what custom banking solutions are and the many benefits financial companies can expect from them.
What Are Custom Banking Solutions?
Custom banking solutions are software applications designed specifically for a particular company. They are useful when standard software lacks certain features that enable the company to operate more efficiently and better serve its customers.
While custom software development can be costly, those costs may be offset by gained efficiencies and additional revenue from new and continuing customers, as well as the elimination of the need to update the software application every few years.
Benefits of Custom Solutions
All custom software enables companies to develop systems that match their specific workflows or customer needs.
- You can determine the features that will increase the efficiency of your business processes. The software will bend to fit the way you do things rather than the other way around.
- Conversely, you don’t have to include unnecessary features that will only bog the software down. And you don’t have to spend time learning how to do things that don’t make sense for your business.
- You can combine various departments into one program to ensure compatibility between the different areas.
- When your company grows, you can easily increase the software’s functionality, enabling you to smoothly expand.
- Custom software is highly reliable, meaning less time wasted on frustrating problems.
Benefits of Custom Banking Solutions
The benefits of custom banking solutions include all those listed above as well as those of particular interest to financial companies that follow here.
Mobile Apps
One highly important type of software for banking institutions is customer mobile apps. As discussed above, CX has become a key differentiator for businesses of all kinds and an effective means for retaining customers. An app can contribute to it by enabling banking customers to easily check balances, make deposits and withdrawals, make loan payments, transfer funds, and other critical tasks. However, for an app to contribute to a good UX, it must be effective, secure, and easy to use. If, for example, the user interface (UI) is difficult to navigate, then users will become frustrated, have a poor experience, and perhaps even defect to another institution. With a custom app, these scenarios are unlikely, given that it will be built with exactly the right features and with the company’s specific processes in mind.
E-Wallets
According to The Financial Brand, e-wallets, or mobile wallets as they are sometimes called, haven’t taken off yet. Consumers still prefer traditional cards to pay for their purchases. However, “a perfect storm of drivers could tip the scale towards adoption in the next few years, [so] banks and credit unions should be prepared for when it comes.” Financial companies that get ahead of this trend will be able to retain customers that want to use e-wallets and attract those looking for this service as part of the whole banking package. They include: Growing deployment by retailers of near-field communications (NFC) technology, which allows phones to share technology with equipped devices. Big Tech is offering platforms for mobile payment, including Apple Pay and Google Pay. Generation Z is gaining in buying power and is likely to demand more mobile payment options.
Regulatory Technology
Financial institutions must remain compliant with regulatory standards. Custom regulatory technology can enable companies to manage this complex yet critical aspect of their business in alignment with other business processes. One application can manage and keep abreast a wide range of regulations, such as customer data protection (like the GDPR in Europe) and many others.
Security
Security is always important in software but especially so for banking applications, whether the software is used in-house or by customers. For financial institutions, a security breach can be devastating, resulting in lost time, effort, and revenue, as well as something that’s much harder to repair: a tarnished reputation. Custom software is highly secure because security measures are taken throughout the development process. For customer-facing applications, security features can be built in: Multi-factor authentication requires more than just a password to gain access to the account. Real-time alerts let users know about account activity and warn of suspicious actions. Encryption protects highly sensitive data.
How BairesDev Can Help
BairesDev is a trusted partner of banks, trading companies, accounting agencies, and other financial institutions. We provide high-quality custom banking software development that empowers the fintech industry with the latest technologies and tools.
Our fintech outsourcing services focus on offering platforms and systems to boost the potential of financial technology. These IT solutions drive growth and create value for financial companies, which is why some of the biggest names in the industry trust BairesDev with their IT needs, such as building a mobile payment application, testing a web-based CRM platform for a bank, or designing an artificial intelligence analytics algorithm.
Our projects include:
- Banking development. Our teams can build anything a business might need, from customer acquisition analysis algorithms and gateways for payments to web-based CRM platforms.
- Trading systems. We can develop trading systems with automation capabilities to ensure maximum profit across transactions while offering compliance tracking in every one of them.
- Loan and credit solutions. These platforms allow for a streamlined workflow that provides the necessary features covering all credit and loan management needs.
- Financial mobile apps. We can work on an investment app, create a mobile portal to make trades or exchange accounting information, or build a fully-fledged mobile banking app for end-users.
- Banking cloud technologies. From online CRM portals to back-end products for automated tasks, we can extend the possibilities of any institution.
- Data management and analytic services. We can create data management and analytic tools that examine high data volumes almost in real-time.
- API development. Connecting with other partners to create a complex digital infrastructure is a must for fintech enterprises.
- Marketing tools. We have teams with marketing expertise to work on CRMs and BPMs that can optimize core marketing activities.
