Coming Soon: Predictive Analytics for Business
Choosing the right bank with the right online banking platform should be top of mind for corporate executives. That’s the conclusion of a new report from Greenwich Associates, Corporate Clicks Drive E-Banking Platform Innovations, that includes a guide to the offerings the online platforms of the most innovative global and regional banks in Asia, Europe and North America. The guide is intended to educate corporate executives about the electronic features they should expect and demand from banks.
Companies today rely on Internet and other connectivity with banking providers for most treasury functions, making the functionality, reliability and overall quality of e-banking platforms capable of creating real positive or negative impacts on regular company workflows. The increasing use of the Internet channel for higher value banking, cash management and other functions creates opportunities for new efficiencies that will benefit companies that can leverage leading-edge features and functionality within e-banking platforms.
Every year, Greenwich Associates conducts a detailed review of the world’s leading Internet and e-banking platform providers. As part of this review, experts from Greenwich Associates test bank platforms extensively and ask management detailed questions about their products and strategies. The results of this research are used by bank clients of the Greenwich Associates Online Services Benchmarking Program to benchmark their own system capabilities against those of competitors, and to help set business and development strategy. This year, Greenwich Associates also used the top-line findings of this unique research to also present companies with a detailed guide to the features and services now available on e-banking platforms: Online Corporate Banking: A Guide to the Latest Platform Features and Functions. The goal: To provide companies with a set of concrete criteria to use in selecting providers and writing RFPs for banking services.
Bank Investment Drives Technology Advances
Because online banking platforms, like all technology, are in a constant state of development and transformation, companies should avoid the mistake of picking a provider based solely on the bank’s existing online capabilities.
“Even during the worst days of the financial crisis, not one of the major global banks reduced its development budgets for online corporate banking platforms,” says Greenwich Associates consultant Marc Harrison.
Because capabilities are evolving so quickly, companies should ask bank representatives about their development strategy, with a keen focus on what new services are coming online and how soon they will become available. Gaining an understanding of a bank’s technology budget and how the institution’s level of investment compares to that of other institutions provides the key to understanding its commitment to improving its e-banking platform.
Coming Soon: Predictive Analytics
The new Greenwich Report traces the development of online banking from transactional services, to today’s state-of-the-art tools for decision support and, finally, looks ahead to the next big advance: predictive analytics. The addition of predictive analytic capabilities to bank online platforms will allow companies to receive projected outcomes for decisions related to current cash position, credit availability, short-term investments and many other critical issues related to treasury and other business functions. Because systems will be dynamic, with continuously updated data and broad access facilitated by social media technologies, CFOs, treasurers and other key employees will be able to test various scenarios and decisions, with outcomes based on their own customized parameters and information. E-banking systems will also allow employees to do this in real time from any location.
“The arrival of predictive analytics will move online bank platforms far beyond the world of transactions and information, turning them instead into essential business management tools,” says Marc Harrison. “Although these capabilities will not become widely available for some time, the trajectory of the technology is clear. Because these tools have the potential to be so powerful, companies that have made the right choice about their banking partners will enjoy a real competitive advantage over rivals as predictive analytics and other new features are rolled out.”