September 14, 2021 | Stamford, CT — The COVID-19 crisis dramatically accelerated the adoption of digital tools and channels among executives—a shift that has many implications for banks and their clients, including the potential for additional long-term consolidation for the industry.

A new report from Coalition Greenwich analyzes the impact of this surge in technology innovation and identifies the most important trends in digital banking for the remainder of 2021 and beyond.

• Accelerating Pace of Digital Investment: Aggressive IT investments by the world’s biggest banks during the pandemic produced a surge in innovation. In a typical year, banks submit roughly 50 new digital platform features and functionality for review by the Coalition Greenwich Digital Transformation Benchmarking program. Over the last year, that number jumped to 254 and included 50 in the API/TMS/ERP category, 27 virtual account management solutions, 21 mobile apps, and 19 cash-forecasting tools.
• Expanding Role of Fintech: Fintechs are also playing the role of equalizer by providing cost-effective, off-the-shelf products that enable banks with smaller budgets to deploy digital platforms to compete with national and global players.
• Potential for Consolidation: The world’s biggest banks had the resources to continue IT investment programs during the crisis and have widened the capability gap between themselves and the smaller regional providers, many of which curtailed spending during the pandemic.
• New Focus on Marketing Innovation: Best-practice banks now include marketing spend in their investment business cases to help ensure a rapid adoption and ROI. They are also increasingly coupling technology spend initiatives with broader external communication and marketing plans, reinforcing their status as innovation leaders.
• Digital Enhancement of RM Productivity: Digital RM enablement tools allow relationship managers to target the right prospects, provide them with the appropriate contextualized insights for their specific client situations and efficiently execute on their routine tasks, allowing bankers to focus on client management, prospecting and cross-selling.

Key Digital Banking Trends Emerging from Global Pandemic provides a framework for commercial and corporate banks and includes an analysis of important features and functions, an examination of the client experience and examples of client-centric design, a look at core automation and RM productivity enhancement initiatives, and the use of fintech partnerships and marketing initiatives to optimize ROI on digital investments.