Realizing the digital promise

Prior to COVID-19, the financial services industry was already evolving at a rapid pace, driven by changing customer expectations, heightened competition from incumbents and new entrants, evolving regulations, and advancements in technology. Yet, despite these trends, customers’ willingness to adopt—and firms’ willingness to invest in—digital remained inconsistent across players, markets, and continents.

In a matter of weeks, COVID-19 has forced radical changes in customer behavior, moved significant portions of the economy online, and increased customers’ comfort and willingness to engage digitally. Moreover, for many financial institutions, COVID-19 has unlocked hidden potential, stripping away many of the barriers that organizations traditionally face in realizing the digital promise.

The Institute of International Finance and Deloitte have joined together to explore digital transformation in financial institutions. In this supplement, Realizing the digital promise: COVID-19 catalyzes and accelerates transformation in financial services, we examine the four fundamental shifts brought on by COVID-19 that have accelerated digital transformation in the financial services industry, discuss the role digital has played in financial institutions’ pandemic response, and explore the implications for these institutions as they navigate the uncharted waters ahead. We also offer 10 “no regret” actions across customers, businesses, shareholders and stakeholders, and employees/workforce that financial institutions can take today to thrive in the new normal.

The four fundamental shifts brought on by COVID-19 are:

	Forced adoption of online, mobile, and call center		Overnight virtualization of workforce and ways of working
	Tipping point for digital and contactless payments		Evolution of underlying market structure and economics

Read the report to learn more.

Stay tuned for our third and final report, which will explore the role of the external ecosystem for financial institutions in their digital transformation journey. As part of this, we will investigate what influence the external ecosystem will have on financial institutions in overcoming some of the challenges associated with the digital transformation outlined in our first report, Realizing the digital promise: Top nine challenges to digital transformation for financial institutions.

Also explore the second paper in the series, Realizing the digital promise: Key enablers for digital transformation in financial services.

Realizing the digital promise - the COVID catalyst