Customer Online Conversations Reveal ‘All to Play for’ in Battle between Challengers and Incumbent Banks, Finds Economist Intelligence Unit Report for Temenos

Temenos (SIX: TEMN), the banking software company, today published a new report by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) based on an analysis of over 10 million online conversations in public forums about personal finance. The report, “Customer experience: learning from online personal finance conversations”, reveals the strengths and weaknesses of traditional and challenger banks in terms of how well they are meeting customer needs. It finds challenger banks are strongly associated with financial empowerment, but also twice as likely to be associated with security and privacy concerns when compared to traditional banks.

According to the EIU report, start-up, digital-first banks and investment services have come to market promising superior customer experience and innovative services, such as budgeting apps and automated, low-cost investment tools. But traditional banks still benefit from trust, reliability and a wider range of services. And increasingly, spurred on by new digital entrants, they are investing heavily in their digital capabilities. In an earlier EIU global survey, a third (32%) of banking leaders stated that improving customer experience and engagement was their bank’s top strategic priority.

Max Chuard, Chief Executive Officer, Temenos, said: “The new report, which analyzes online conversations, reveals that in the battle for consumers, challengers and incumbent banks will need to meet customers’ demands for financial empowerment, enhanced digital experiences as well as safety and security. We see digital technology as a once-in-a-generation opportunity to deliver satisfying and secure customer experiences and generate growth for banks. With Temenos’ advanced cloud and AI technology, we serve over 3000 banks, we help challengers scale fast and incumbent banks innovate and create the hyper-personalized experiences that customers crave. With our open, microservices-based technology architecture, we allow banks to re-imagine their business models and create effective marketplaces to deliver real value to their customers. The transformative power of cloud and AI technology gives banks a fighting chance in the campaign for customer relationships, but time is of the essence.”

The analysis found that 13.7% of conversations about challenger banks included associations with concerns about safety, security or privacy, compared with only 6.7% of those about traditional banks. Discussions about “investment” have grown in frequency since 2015, and the analysis shows that 14.4% of conversations that discuss challenger banks include associations with financial empowerment capabilities such as tracking and budgeting, compared with just 2% of conversations that discuss traditional banks.

But while many consumers are turning towards disruptive fintech platforms for enriched tools and services to bolster their personal finances, traditional banks remain heavily associated with rewards and loyalty programs—one of the most discussed subjects overall. A quarter (24.9%) of conversations about traditional banks were related to credit cards or reward programs, compared to just 2.4% of those involving challengers.

The report also notes that the field of “financial services” is far bigger than before with open banking allowing third parties to build innovative financial products and assist customers in many aspects of their financial lives. This could see fintech become ubiquitous in areas far beyond core banking services. The analysis shows incumbents and challengers are only associated with 18% of total personal finance discussions, with the rest covering everything from divorces and wills to car buying.

Jason Bates, co-founder of app-based banks Monzo and Starling, as well as 11:FS, a fintech consultancy, comments in the report: “Innovators are those who understand the ‘brutal realities’ of customers’ daily lives. We never ask customers, ‘what would you like us to build?’ because they are experts at talking about their problems and experience, not product development. Our approach to creating new digital services is to talk to customers about the issues in their daily life and then look at how you can deliver against that.”

Report methodology
To better understand consumer preferences when it comes to retail banking services, the EIU developed a natural language processing model to analyze over 10 million online English-language conversations about finance and banking, drawn from English-language personal finance forums on Reddit. This analysis supplemented the EIU survey results of over 300 global banking executives, conducted earlier this year.

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About The Economist Intelligence Unit
The Economist Intelligence Unit is the world leader in global business intelligence. It is the business-to-business arm of The Economist Group, which publishes The Economist newspaper. The Economist Intelligence Unit helps executives make better decisions by providing timely, reliable and impartial analysis on worldwide market trends and business strategies. More information can be found at www.eiu.com or www.twitter.com/theeiu.

About Temenos
Temenos AG (SIX: TEMN) is the world’s leader in banking software. Over 3,000 banks across the globe, including 41 of the top 50 banks, rely on Temenos to process both the daily transactions and client interactions of more than 500 million banking customers. Temenos offers cloud-native, cloud-agnostic and AI-driven front office, core banking, payments and fund administration software enabling banks to deliver frictionless, omnichannel customer experiences and gain operational excellence.

Temenos software is proven to enable its top-performing clients to achieve cost-income ratios of 26.8% half the industry average and returns on equity of 29%, three times the industry average. These clients also invest 51% of their IT budget on growth and innovation versus maintenance, which is double the industry average, proving the banks’ IT investment is adding tangible value to their business.

For more information, please visit www.temenos.com.

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Contact information

Jessica Wolfe & Scott Rowe
Temenos Global Public Relations
Tel: +1 610 232 2793 & +44 20 7423 3857
Email : press@temenos.com

Alistair Kellie & Andrew Adie
Newgate Communications on behalf of Temenos
Tel: +44 20 7680 6550
Email: allnewgatetemenos@newgatecomms.com