Today, most Tier 1 banks develop their mobile banking apps inhouse. For other financial institutions, the path is not so clear. Should they custom build inhouse, maintaining absolute control, or lean on the experience of an external vendor and their white-label solution?

Fintech digital transformation can be made much simpler if partners are willing to drive value in the direction of their customers. With more innovation taking place in the industry, the ability to meet the customers’ needs is what sets a company apart from the rest. As the world continues along its current trajectory towards digital payments and banking services, organisations like Sandstone Technology — with multiple technological capabilities — are encouraging the adoption of fintech among consumers and businesses.

Customers today have come to expect a level of personalisation while interacting with everyday brands. Technology companies like Amazon, Netflix, and Facebook have recognised the opportunity personalisation can offer organisations and have advanced their service offering through personalised experiences in order to meet constantly evolving customer expectations.

Even before the events of 2020 pandemic, Australian and New Zealand consumers were embracing banking on the go. A RFI global digital banking study shows that 73% of consumers are using a mobile app to do their banking, with a significant increase of 12% over the past two years. The uptake of mobile banking apps has risen dramatically across all demographics, bringing with it new vulnerabilities.

Sandstone Technology’s CEO Michael Phillipou helps explain how APIs make exciting fintech integrations possible with many core banking system, however monolithic and problematic they may be.

At a time when it’s easier to switch than ever before, single customer view is a powerful retention and capture tool in the fight for market share, according to Sandstone Technology Chief Customer Office Ross Watts. There are two main battlegrounds for banks generally, says Watts. The first is achieving ‘main financial institution’ status with a customer, meaning that the bank holds the customer’s main transaction account. And the second is the home loan.

As Britons continue to save more in the wake of COVID-19, and more savers do their banking digitally, building societies and banks must re-think how they service their e-savings accounts to increase share of wallet.

In the first half of 2021, Australians have experienced a major bottleneck in loan application approvals. Lenders continue to struggle as a hot residential property market fuels consumer demand, and as businesses seek to finance a strong recovery post COVID.

During the pandemic, at a time when many SMEs needed their banks’ support the most, they were let down by a major service gap. Outdated digital banking solutions are a big part of this ongoing problem. Banks have traditionally focused on servicing the high-volume retail and enterprise/corporate segments, and neglected small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs). While neobanks have jumped in to fill the gap with products and services targeted to SME needs and challenges, traditional banks continue to lag behind.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left Australia in an environment of low interest rates and reduced stability in earnings caused by government-imposed lockdowns, strategic business changes such as operations, budget cuts and redundancies that affect daily operations and budgets and employment, as well as changes in economic trends; these trends majorly affecting sectors including travel, finance, brick and mortar retail and hospitality, with flow-on effects within the broader economy.