There is still a disconnect between banks and their customers, a legacy of the financial crisis. Banks are battling to regain public trust, while trying to protect their customer base from aggressive competition. At the same time, they are facing waves of disruptive innovation coming out of the nimbler fintech sector. To further build trust with customers, banks will need to prove that there’s an ongoing cultural change and transformation within their organisations. This means changing propositions to provide more and personalised digital services and adapting branches to today’s digital customer needs.

A 2016 study into the habits of the global mass affluent[1] customer by Collinson Group found that only 17% believe that their bank understands them. The same survey found that 81% of the mass affluent use banking apps, up from 69% in 2014. This is further evidence that banks must get their digital offer right if they are to remain relevant in today’s market.

Many banks have begun the required digital transformation process, rethinking their business models and embracing digital innovation. Video is a powerful tool in the success of this development, helping to support change management and work flows, and foster a culture of collaboration that is essential if banks are to achieve their digital ambitions.

Collaboration - a competitive advantage

One of the most enviable assets of many fintech companies is a collaborative culture, key to enabling innovation to flourish. One firm forged in this collaborative environment is Transferwise, which relies on its network of fans on social media to help it gain traction in new markets. It now sends money from over 55 countries and is valued at more than £1 billion, winning a place on Virgin Media Business’ Disruptor 10 last year.

Traditional banks will need to increase their agility to bring the digital offers that consumers are demanding to market. This means building a culture of collaboration that embraces digital, and offers a more flexible working environment for employees, enabling them to rapidly connect with remote workers and contractors.

New spaces, new types of collaboration

This collaborative model of working calls for a new set of tools. Businesses and organisations of all sizes are racing to support employee demand for collaboration tools. In a recent survey by Nemertes, 90 percent of respondents agreed that video conferencing makes meetings more efficient. As companies expand and create novel office environments, the research found that 17 percent plan to exclusively deploy open workspaces in these new environments, which is a 41 percent increase over current deployments.

Likewise, banks could consider not only the way in which employees communicate, but spaces which offer bolder and more dynamic office designs. These can be equipped with a multitude of different types of spaces that employees can use, ranging from the smaller ‘huddle’ rooms that can allow for spontaneous collaboration, to larger-sized, more formal meeting rooms. For example, there are video conferencing solutions available that provide an automatic meeting room setup in a conference style room, where you can leave your laptop behind and easily join a video call with the touch of a finger. By HD video enabling these spaces, banks will find that they empower their workforce, allowing them to work more collaboratively in cross-functional teams. Many banks, including HSBC, are already using video on a wide spread basis to help simplify communication in a largely distributed workforce from around the world.

There’s also a requirement for user-friendly collaboration software that allows employees to make full use of both the space and technology. This should range from having the capacity to send an instant message to quickly ask a simple query, to wirelessly screen sharing portfolios while maintaining a video stream to colleagues. For example, by streamlining the video meeting set-up, execs won’t have to email large reports across to the management team, they can demonstrate their findings with dynamic graphs and documents via video conferencing. Wainhouse research (predictions for 2017) forecasts that in 2017 ‘advanced collaboration will start to take hold – not just presenting information, but also working collaboratively with others to create and modify content items.’

Deploying effectively

To ensure banks can continue to compete with the fintech sector for customers, they will need to innovate their digital offer. While this includes banking platforms and various mobile applications, it also means organisational transformation and ultimately a big internal culture change within their workforce.

By fostering a more collaborative environment, banks will find that they are able to tap into their talent base more effectively, which is key to delivering the required transformation that customers are expecting. Video deployment is a clear component of this story as banks seek to empower their workforce and become industry champions of customer engagement.

[1] This refers to the top 10-15% of earners globally