{"id":21429,"date":"2021-08-10T15:48:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-10T10:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.aspiresys.com\/?p=21429"},"modified":"2026-02-20T12:17:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T06:47:16","slug":"wear-your-digital-banking-seatbelts-tight-its-time-to-fly-high-with-challenger-banks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/banking-financial-services\/digital-transformation-in-banking\/wear-your-digital-banking-seatbelts-tight-its-time-to-fly-high-with-challenger-banks\/","title":{"rendered":"Wear Your Digital Banking Seatbelts Tight \u2013 It\u2019s Time to Fly High with Challenger Banks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The tale of the rise of digital banking is a long narrated one and banks have understood the importance of the same. This has led to the challenger banking revolution and their unsurmountable rise is inevitable. This rise is further accelerated by the current pandemic effect. Now the question is \u2013 how can any financial institution grow like a challenger bank? The obvious answer is by having the challenger mindset. Here are four pillars we believe will nurture the challenger perspective present in your financial organization.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>Four Pillars of Challenger Banks<\/strong><\/h3>\n<h4><strong>1.Focal point: Customers<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-21445 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Picture1-300x280.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"280\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Picture1-300x280.png 300w, https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Picture1.png 359w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The key aspect behind digitization is catering to customer needs in the best possible way. There are three basic segments to categorize customers: digital natives, the unbanked, and the under banked.<\/p>\n<p>Challenger banks have leveraged the missing aspect of traditional banks and raced their way towards achieving customer satisfaction. This aspect is what the traditional banks have failed to understand along with several sub-divisions under the above three segments.<\/p>\n<p>In order to reach customers in the right way, all the banking products and services should be tailor-made to suit those sub-divisions. Hence, we are witnessing some of the most advanced technical implementations, like AI\/ML based risk management, analytical solutions, digital onboarding and origination solutions, etc.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/ter.li\/gk55m3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Customer Segmentation: A Treasure Trove for Marketers in the Banking Dynasty!<\/a><\/p>\n<h4><strong>2.Frictionless Customer Experience<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Here\u2019s a question \u2013 How many people in current times are interested to wait in long queues, fill multiple forms, visit banks more than twice to solve a particular issue, etc., for a loan? Very few, right? This is because today\u2019s customers expect everything to happen \u2018on the go\u2019 and that applies to the financial industry as well.<\/p>\n<p>The overall digital customer experience in today\u2019s world needs to be easy, seamless, and secure. From onboarding to loan origination, the entire experience has to be completed with minimal taps and duration.<\/p>\n<p>There are a few challenger banks that offer instant loans with minimal friction. How are they even doing it? Thanks to AI\/ML based analytics, Real-time credit scoring integrations, etc., that makes the entire process secure and simple.<\/p>\n<p>Another powerful aspect of frictionless customer onboarding is \u2013 omnichannel banking. Irrespective of any device, web browsers, mobile application, etc., customers expect consistent banking experience everywhere or as we would like to call \u2018Anytime Anywhere Banking.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/ter.li\/1mxzx2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">9 Trends That Define Customer Experience in Banking in 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<h4><strong>3.Value-additions: Customer well-being<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Empathy banking is another interesting aspect that truly reaches customers irrespective of the segments. It is important to understand that banking is not just limited to \u2018savings account,\u2019 it goes way beyond and deeper than this presumed thought. Banks have to consider their customer\u2019s financial well-being as one of their core principles and need to go the extra mile for this value-addition.<\/p>\n<p>With the advent of social media and e-commerce, businesses have strong influence on customers and hence, banks are supposed to provide engaging digital solutions. For instance, banks can offer goal-based savings account, where customers can create a goal and save financially to achieve it.<\/p>\n<p>But the million-dollar question is \u2013 how to add such value and develop deep connections with the customers?<\/p>\n<p>Answer \u2013 Hyper-personalization.<\/p>\n<p>Some challenger banks have incorporated hyper-personalization as a part of their core banking architecture. One situational instance is that if the bank identifies a customer having a low balance account and needs assistance to survive the month, it processes a pre-approved loan and intimates the customer of this shortage and assistance.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/ter.li\/idpogh\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Smart Spending Analytics \u2013 Personal Financial Management<\/a><\/p>\n<h4><strong>4.Resilient operations<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>In all the above pillars, what is the most common point?<\/p>\n<p>Advanced technologies!<\/p>\n<p>Innovation in the banking sector has given birth to several challenger banks that have leveraged the state-of-the-art technologies to provide customers the best banking experience. While understanding the customers is a mandate, another facet is operational excellence.<\/p>\n<p>Cloud native and cloud agnostic systems have become the saviors of the banking industry with their round-the-clock accessibility, scalability, and security. To complement this, microservices are ensuring modularity, hence, failures are limited to just a microservice and not the whole banking architecture.<\/p>\n<p>You must already know the power of AI\/ML based platforms that help in risk management, personalized solutions, security, etc. Another aspect that challenger banks are considering is the loosely coupled frameworks associated with their API architecture to make enhancements\/upgrades easy. Also, some of them have exposed their APIs to several fintechs to encourage <a href=\"https:\/\/ter.li\/so4e9i\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Marketplace Integrations<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><strong>A Takeaway<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Challenger banks are growing profoundly and soon they might conquer the banking industry with their superior customer experience. However, to grow like a challenger bank, there is an open-secret-\u201dDigital transformation is not a one-time thing; it is a continuous empowering journey.\u201d The best way to advance in this journey is through collaboration, that helps build a \u2018dream ecosystem\u2019 by associating with multiple partners and leveraging the strengths, customer base, and offerings of their platform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The tale of the rise of digital banking is a long narrated one and banks have understood the importance of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":167,"featured_media":37848,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4852],"tags":[2604,3120,737,2838,3121],"practice_industry":[4515],"coauthors":[2483],"class_list":["post-21429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-digital-transformation-in-banking","tag-customer-experience-in-banking","tag-customer-segmentation-in-banking","tag-digital-banking","tag-digital-banking-customer-experience","tag-digital-transformation-in-banking","practice_industry-banking-financial-services"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/167"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21429"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21429\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40789,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21429\/revisions\/40789"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37848"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21429"},{"taxonomy":"practice_industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/practice_industry?post=21429"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspiresys.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=21429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}