Guest article

The invisible bank: Trap or opportunity?

Oliver Bohl Birgit Spors

ndgit series: Experts talk about banking disruption

By Dr. Oliver Bohl, Director Digital Channels, and Birgit Spors, Head of Marketing/ Digital Channels Germany, KfW Bankengruppe

As children, we’ve all dreamt of being invisible. And as adults, who hasn’t wanted an invisible helper to make life easier – right?

With modern technology, we can now experience and appreciate invisible helpers in our everyday activities. From biometric IDs, contactless payments, in-car navigation and smart home devices, invisible helpers are becoming more and more indispensable due to their high convenience.

But invisibility can sometimes be a bad thing. For brands, invisibility equals non-action or non-perception. Invisible processes can lead to glaring problems, and invisible regulations can diminish our confidence.

How platform economics impacts visibility for (promotional) banks

Today, established portals increasingly dominate customer perception. Mediated or integrated third-party services can quickly lose their anchor point in customers’ consciousness.

This conflict initially arises from the fact that modern customer experiences are shaped by the convenience of global platforms such as Amazon, Google or Facebook. As coordinators of large marketplaces, they present users with all information and services in one place.

Portals, platforms and ecosystems take the form of ‘mediators’, that gain relevance through the market mechanisms of the platform economy. In this environment, there is clear visibility of their own brand/values but not necessarily for those of the services they offer.

This makes having a ‘platform’ strategy even more important for banks. After all, banking processes and banking products are predestined to be integrated into more comprehensive processes and service bundles.   In order to be an integral part of platforms, banking products and their processes have to be automated and digitised i.e. smooth, seamless and invisible.

Keeping all eyes on the customer

Banking services are not usually standalone functions but are enablers – for payment, for financing, investments, etc. They can be complex, advice intense, often not frictionless or designed to be connected.  To make them more palatable to consumers, third party platforms are now starting to offer banking services, as required.

Often these services are white labelled and aggregated by different providers, creating further intermediaries who also undertake the comparison and control of the services on behalf of the platforms. As a result, banks are in danger of becoming even further removed from the customer.  In concrete terms, this means banks will have to work extra hard to maintain customer contact and develop better solutions for “invisible” work on platforms.

Although this may mean cooperating with platforms (paying), it also means being able to share the experience and collect data to better understand the customer. As customers mix and match their own service solutions, data becomes a valuable commodity helping to determine the best use of technology so should not be siloed internally.

Removing blinkers to collaboration

To this end, there needs to be more cross-industry cooperation between partners AND competitors.  This requires a rethink for bank brands.  They must ditch their own egos and see invisibility as an opportunity, allowing them to focus on their own strengths while building on others’ know-how and efficiency.

Today, it’s not just about scale and reach but also about depth. And that means cooperating with those at the customer interface, including services and players from various industries (from automotive to entertainment industry) as well as with fintechs and with each other.

The result of cooperative approaches impacts organisational structures and processes. The commodification of banking services moves the role of “classic” banker into the background. As customers gain prominence, programmers, data analysts and marketers will become even more important along with IT systems, organisational structures and skills. Understanding ‘beyond banking’ approaches will also necessitate the integration of new talent from outside the banking industry.

Making invisibility work

Going back to what this means in terms of invisibility – it can be an option for strong, highly focused service providers operating on demand-oriented platforms. However, it must also be effective for the universally established customer mindset. Processes that run invisibly in the background must be able to revert quickly back to ‘eye level’ whenever and wherever required.

In order to prevent invisibility from becoming a trap, organisations must define their own level of invisibility and weigh the advantages and disadvantages of the basic strategic decision in a clearly comprehensible manner.

This should be communicated and practised consistently, and not be invisible to talent in and outside the organisation. By doing so, invisibility can become an asset that can be harnessed to create clear benefits for banks and customers alike.

Blogger Shortbio

Oliver is working as a director for digital channels at KfW. He is heading the Digital Business Development, Customer Insights, and Digital Channels & User Experience. Oliver is fostering the digitization of KfW and is responsible for setting up innovative cooperations. In addition, he is a keynote speaker and author on several topics of digital business/ digital leadership as well as an academic lecturer for digital marketing and information systems.

Birgit is responsible for KfW’s domestic marketing and digital channels. Customer Insights, Customer Experience and Customer Centricity are topics that Birgit has lived and exemplified for a long time, also influenced by her experience as Head of Advertising and Communication at ING and by her agency experience at Wunderman. At KfW, she stands for the digital orientation of domestic business, in particular the digital development of marketing and sales.


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