How Banks Can Transform the Legacy Technology Holding Them Back

Today’s banking customers, accustomed to interconnecting services elsewhere in their daily lives, don’t see why they can’t manage their credit cards, checking accounts, and mortgage all in the same place, using a single login instead of being prompted to enter their credentials and security information again and again.

Banks would love to help, but they are often held back by legacy technology. The agility of today’s digital platforms was unheard of when they created their systems, some of which date back to the COBOL era of the 1970s. Work processes are highly siloed, making it difficult to connect one internal service to another, let alone link to the growing number of apps consumers and small businesses are using for everything from budgeting and payments to bookkeeping and taxes.

But the picture is changing as banks shift more of their business processes to the cloud, in part to reduce the growing costs of maintaining aging equipment. The cloud trend accelerated in the remote-working environment of the pandemic. IDC’s 2020 CloudPath Survey, conducted at the height of the crisis, showed that 91% of banks had plans to move to public cloud and 89% had a hybrid cloud strategy.

Public and private clouds allow banks to use more flexible platforms, which can interconnect existing workflows and easily accommodate innovative apps as they hit the market. They can also scale cost-effectively as users and services expand.

One of the main reasons banks have refrained from widescale cloud adoption is concerns about maintaining strict security standards, which they must not only put in place, but prove to auditors that they are following. But today’s technology is designed to make banking more secure while improving access for customers. Public cloud platforms have tools to spot and prevent malware and attacks. And many software platforms support multifactor authentication, helping prevent fraudulent misuse.

When Saudi Arabia’s leading bank wanted to develop a secure and efficient online banking solution, it worked with HCL to create a digital experience platform that validates users based both on their identity and their credit or debit card information. Once customers successfully authenticate, the system determines which services they should have access to. They can then engage in self-service transactions across multiple domains — including checking, savings, credit card, and debit card accounts, and others — without having to log in or authenticate again.

The open architecture of platforms like this also enables banks to securely connect to external services through application programming interfaces (APIs). For example, a customer can check a bank account balance, then can zip over to a payments app. As more of these apps are created, the bank simply adds new, secure connections. There is no limit to the number of services they can link to.

Banks can also use their platforms to deliver personalized content. Marketing teams can build and upload targeted pages on the fly, increasing engagement and improving sales. After adopting HCL’s Digital Experience platform, Freedom Mortgage experienced a 40% increase in customer conversions with its new consumer-facing pages.

On the same platform, Freedom created intranet portals for employees and partners, where it can deliver the latest company news and explain new procedures with the click of a button.

Today’s cloud platforms offer a world of options for connecting services and delivering engaging content. Their comprehensive security and governance controls mean that banks can finally stop ploughing money into outdated legacy systems, and instead, transform themselves into the new portals of financial innovation.

For more information on a digital experience you can trust in the moments that matter, click here.