With the popularity of mobile payment and the rise of online financial management, the demand for financial services generated by ordinary people like us is no longer limited to the counter.
At a time when Internet companies have attracted a large number of “fans” with their ultimate experience and convenient services, commercial banks have actually gone through a profound self-examination.
This external impact, driven by technology, is quietly driving a fundamental change in the business philosophy of the entire banking industry.
From "sitting in business" to "doing business": the service concept is forced to innovate
In the past, bank branches were very busy with people coming and going. When handling business, customers often had to go through long queues and complicated procedures.
Banks play more of a "business" role, relying on their license advantages to wait for customers to come to their doors.
However, Internet finance broke this pattern.
It is laid out around users, transforming complex financial products into simple and easy-to-understand, and compressing transaction-related processes to a period of minutes, or even to a matter of seconds.
Faced with such a dimensionality reduction attack, commercial banks began to gain consciousness and realized that only by putting down their egos and truly thinking from the customer's perspective can they retain users.
As a result, we can see that the functions of online banking are constantly being improved, and so are the functions of mobile banking APPs. At first, it only had simple transfer and inquiry functions, but at this stage, it has been able to intelligently recommend financial products based on the user's habits, and even has the ability to send warm wishes on users' birthdays or holidays.
This transformation is from a "profit-oriented" to a "service-oriented", and this change is an extremely positive evolutionary process that is forced by external forces.
Technology empowerment: Big data makes it possible to have “thousands of people, thousands of faces”
In the traditional model, banks' knowledge of customers is often limited to limited asset certificates and transaction records, making it difficult to provide truly personalized services.
For banks, the big data analysis technology that Internet companies are good at has opened up new ideas for them. At the same time, the cloud computing technology that Internet companies are good at has also opened up new ideas for banks.
Currently, banks can rely on these tools to deeply analyze customers' capital flows, clearly understand their consumption habits, and even understand their social network behaviors, so as to more accurately judge their credit qualifications and risk preferences.
For example, when the system identifies that a user has stable cash flow and likes steady investments, it can use channels such as the China Construction Bank APP to push appropriate funds or financial products to the user to achieve "point-to-point" precision marketing.
This not only improves the user's investment experience, but also significantly increases the bank's business transaction volume and user stickiness, making financial services no longer the kind of standardized products that are undifferentiated.
Optimized experience: double improvement of efficiency and temperature
The user’s time cost is precious, Internet finance One of the biggest advantages is convenience.
In order to cope with this challenge, commercial banks have simplified business processes.
In the past, account opening, financial management purchases and other services had to be handled at the counter. Now, most of these services can be completed on mobile phones within a few minutes.
At the same time, banks are actively adjusting and implementing the measures and are committed to lowering service thresholds, such as reducing inter-bank transfer fees and optimizing the loan approval process for small and micro enterprises. The purpose is to make unremitting efforts to provide customers of different sizes with a more equal service experience.
In terms of communication channels, banks have also become more "down-to-earth".
Online, AI customer service with intelligent features can answer common questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week; offline, branches have added more guidance and inquiry services, and even transformed tellers in the traditional sense into account managers who can provide consultation and advice.
The bank drew on the Internet's spirit of "equality, openness, and connection" and then deeply polished its service quality. This polishing showed an improvement that placed equal emphasis on efficiency and warmth.
Competitive Forces: From Conflict to Mutual Benefit and Symbiosis
Of course, the rise of Internet finance has indeed put some pressure on banks, especially in terms of diversion of deposits and weakening of intermediary functions.
WeChat, as well as the deposit and loan functions of Alipay and those third-party payment tools, have had an impact on the traditional deposit business of banks to a certain extent.
However, as the research conducted by Yin Qiuchen (2020) shows, from a long-term perspective, such an impact will not shake the dominant position of commercial banks in the financial system. On the contrary, it will create a new situation of mutual benefit and symbiosis.
Banks began to face up to their shortcomings and actively innovated.
They are not simply fighting, but are trying to cooperate with Internet platforms in many fields such as payment, financial management, credit, etc., and use their respective advantages to serve customers together.
In this way, the bank's robust risk control system and its own capital advantages, combined with the traffic and technology of Internet companies, can create financial products that are safer and more convenient than before.
The future is already here: change is the only constant
In this interaction with Internet finance, commercial banks began to react passively, then changed to actively seeking changes, and finally found their own evolutionary path.
It cannot copy all the genes of Internet companies, but it can absorb the essence of "user-centeredness" and use technological means to reshape business processes.
The future direction of banks does not focus on whether they will be replaced by other things, but on whether they can deeply integrate their indescribably deep financial heritage with the technological power that is constantly changing rapidly and updated with new aspects every day.
For ordinary users, the implication of this is that we will enjoy more efficient, more thoughtful, and more diversified financial services.
This change was initiated by external pressure, and it will eventually lead the entire industry to make strides towards a higher-quality development stage.
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