Redefining the art of the possible for Financial Services with Data and AI

I recently had the pleasure of speaking at the IDC European Banking Executive Digital Summit 2021 to discuss the value of digital transformation to the financial sector and its customers, and, importantly, the strategies that will get us there.

Faced with a multitude of headwinds, from new entrants to ever-changing customer demands, financial service organisations must move fast to stay relevant. They need to find ways to create a different relationship with their customers so they can move away from pushing products, and toward understanding and catering to their needs better.

This huge reinvention opportunity will largely be driven by data and AI. It’s now easier to create machine learning models and get them into production, and cloud platforms make it financially viable to process more data than ever before. This perfect storm has redefined the art of the possible for financial services.

It allows the finance sector to create a vision that puts customers at the heart – to build trust and meet both their financial and emotional needs, especially around big life decisions. It also allows them to reimagine their entire operations as a data ecosystem – a model that fintech upstarts have embraced from the outset. And it allows them to give data and AI superpowers to every colleague in the business to drive faster and better decision making, and create richer client interactions.

A client that we're working with is focused on driving deep personal relationships, and making banking very human in this digital age, effectively building purpose into every aspect of banking. This can only be achieved at scale with data and AI embedded in every customer interaction – a transaction that now can truly enrich and deepen the relationship. For them, and for others, this means more than simply creating new customer interactions and personalisation models. It’s about the right foundation capabilities in key data and experience platforms, such as Adobe, and embedding centralised customer identification that goes beyond product to include emotional customer needs.

To realise the true data and AI value opportunity, though, the focus must shift from a pure technology play to a wider business and culture transformation. No bank should have a strategy right now that doesn't have data and AI at its heart.

In a second discussion, Simon Murray, Head of Financial Services in Europe for Adobe and Accenture’s Banking Lead for Europe, Fabrice Asvazadourian, agreed that successful transformations focus on bringing together three areas: technology, customer experiences and employee empowerment. Simon Murray concluded that, “fundamentally, AI and machine learning coupled with the data foundation that businesses have spent years building, is now becoming an enabler for people and processes.”

At Accenture, we aren't just saying we're passionate about helping our clients with this, we've acted upon it. Watch more videos from IDC’s European banking summit here, or find out how Accenture and Adobe can help your organisation address the opportunities of digital transformation here.