#banking #fintech #innovation #payments #lending #forex #designthinking #retailbanking
“Well, Mr. Purushotham, we’ll send you a form. Please fill it up and go to the nearest branch. Submit it there. Then we will transfer the money from your account to the recipient’s account,” said the lady from the bank call centre. So I countered with what I thought was logic – “Ma’am, but both I and the recipient have accounts with your bank. Why do I need to fill a form and submit it. Can’t I do this via your digital platform?” Her answer – “No. At best, you can scan the signed form and send it to us. We’ll do a verification over the phone before we do the transfer.”
It’s interesting. The only reason for doing the transfer in the first place was because I was sending money to a Fintech which had a corporate account with the bank. The fintech is in the remittance business. My bank was unable to give me even a remotely reasonable conversion rate for my remittance. Despite whatever made-up status I have with them. The fintech that I was transferring to offered me a rate that was far superior. Just a couple of basis points off the live rates. So not only was the bank unable to compete on rates, they were woefully incapable of handling a request digitally. As a matter of fact, I had signed up with the Fintech, including KYC verification, literally minutes before making the request.
This broken experience is the reason that we at Bridge DFS focus on the Human Centered Design methodology to help our clients see things the way their customers do. This helps our clients build their products, tech-stacks, business models, distribution and financials from the point-of-view of their customers. Now if I can convince my bank to use our services, that would be super cool :-). Clearly, whichever big consultancy firm they are using is not delivering the goods.
BRIDGE 