Customer control takes off
An important group of consumers wants to actively manage their own financial affairs - and financial services firms will have to cater to them. That was the dominant theme at yesterday's FST Media Banking and Financial Services Technology and Innovation conference in Melbourne. The most popular phrase of the morning session, in particular, was "customer control", exemplified in Apple's iPhone.
Neil McMurchy, research director of IT advisor Gartner, raised the idea of "customer-managed relationship" (CMR), which Gartner and others have been promoting for several years. The CMR approach advocates giving customers control over their data and their interactions with the company. McMurchy told the conference that "your users want to pick and choose pieces of technology".
That approach received significant support from the institutions themselves. Sam Plowman, executive general manager of direct banking at NAB, stated simply that "customer control over finances and life" was what everyone in the industry is thinking about.
Tristan Laszok, director of strategic development and design at AMP, described customers who won't just let the bank handle the transaction, but want to oversee it themselves.
Glen Hickey, group executive information technology at insurer Calliden Group, argued that the move to customer control was still generally being resisted in Australia, and suggested Canadian firms were further down the path. NAB's Plowman stated baldly that small entrepreneurial firms, not large players, are leading the move towards customer control worldwide.
As BankWest CIO Andy Weir pointed out, these consumers are only one segment; a quite different segment still wants a financial institution to manage their financial affairs for them. But the consumers searching for customer control are substantial in number, include many high-income earners, and their numbers are are almost certainly growing quickly.
A few years ago, banking IT conferences rang with talk of data warehouses and "owning the customer". That talk is receding.
Already in 2010, as Banking Day has previously noted, banks have shown they are changing their approach to the customer. NAB's "more give and less take" campaign and the ANZ's "Barbara from Bankworld" ads both reflect research showing what politicians have long understood - that most people neither like nor trust banks. The rising emphasis on customer control reflects this same awareness.
Are Australia's financial services firms embracing customer control? Email views and evidence to editorial@bankingday.com