What Advantages Does an Enterprise-Grade Customer Data Platform Offer Retail Banks?

Financial institutions have access to a treasure trove of customer data. After all, consumers these days share a lot of their personal and transactional information with their banking, financial services, and insurance (BFSI) providers. Unfortunately, many BFSI companies—particularly those that are more traditional and less open to technological advances—find themselves unable to adequately access the customer data they’ve accumulated and use it for the benefit of their business and their customers.

This is where an enterprise-grade customer data platform (CDP) shines. Prominently featured in most core banking systems that are designed for the digital age, next-generation customer data platforms give financial institutions the tools they need to collect, store, organize, access, maintain, and utilize the data that they’ve collected from their customers. By having these capabilities, a financial institution is empowered to meet the needs of modern consumers who expect to receive personalized services with every interaction with their banks, insurance, and financial services providers.

If your financial institution is still on the fence about adopting a modern CDP as a part of your digital core banking system, you should know that it’s important to recognize the difference that this tool can make for your business today. Here are some of the benefits that your organization stands to gain by committing to a more efficient way of managing and using customer data.

Have the Means to Develop a Full Understanding of the Customer

To provide your retail and corporate customers with exceptional services that are on a par with their expectations, your bank must have a unified profile of the client. To work as intended, this profile should unify all customer data and the context of each tidbit of information, and it should also be accessible in real-time, no matter how small or large a profile is. Legacy data systems are often organized in silos, and this architecture makes it much more difficult for different departments to access and share customer information. However, modern data management platforms are capable of capturing and integrating customer data, building customer profiles, and providing BFSI companies with a better understanding of their customers’ behaviors on a granular level and in real-time.

Use Intelligent Tools and Machine Learning for Predictive Modelling

Financial companies with a modern customer data platform are not only able to get a single and dynamic view of their customer profiles, these organizations can also access intelligent solutions such as artificial intelligence and machine learning when creating predictive models. This is because CDPs these days have a layer of intelligence, and they make use of profiles that bring together data from various sources and points of interaction. As such, these platforms are capable of creating predictive models that incorporate more faceted information and offer better, more actionable insights.

Offer Customer-Based Intelligence to Other Aspects of the Business

New CDPs are designed for the democratization of customer data within a financial institution, and as such, it won’t be difficult for other departments within the company to also access client information. In fact, using these platforms, it’s entirely possible for sales, marketing, commerce, social, and other departments to incorporate customer insights in the projects, tasks, or reports that they are putting together. If a retail bank’s marketing department is starting a referral campaign, for example, then the team can use customer data to look for customers who are entirely happy with their bank’s services and exclude customers who may be experiencing technical difficulties with their accounts at the moment.

Enrich and Personalize Customer Services and Experiences with Ease

A unified profile gives a financial institution the means to determine the demographics of the people and companies that they are serving at a highly granular level. These systems, for example, can be used to collect information about common spending habits, geographical location, and other factors that may impact the way these customers use financial services. Having all these details as well as the capability to incorporate them in customer services, experiences, responses, can help banks gain a true understanding of what their clients want and need from their financial services providers.

The digital revolution is in full swing, and financial institutions that were quick to adopt new technologies are now poised to maximize the new capabilities afforded by their digital core banking systems. These BFSI companies are now able to meet the expectations of their tech-savvy customers through the use of better data management systems, cloud-based solutions, automation, artificial intelligence, and a host of other future-ready technologies.

Financial organizations that have upgraded their legacy systems to core banking systems that make full use of digital technology have all the tools needed to increase the efficiency of their internal processes, reduce operation and compliance costs, and provide their clients with top-notch customer service and experiences. If your company is still in the process of upgrading its core banking system, now is the best time to consider whether or not a next-generation customer data platform should be prioritized in the next phase of your financial organization’s digitalization process.