finance q+a with oliver rust
Oliver Rust, Managing Director, Hong Kong at Nielsen, recently took a few minutes to speak with Videology about how technology is influencing the financial services industry and how consumers interact with brands.
Q: How is technology changing the banking industry?
A: Mobile banking has certainly been quite interesting in that its adoption and usage varies significantly across markets, which is based on the infrastructure associated with each market.
While adoption of mobile banking has increased significantly, especially in the last 2-3 years, emerging markets tend to demonstrate the greatest propensity to "leap frog" mature markets in terms of the adoption of new technologies. This is highlighted by Asia Pacific and the Middle East where mobile phone usage for investment transaction is 36% compared to North American and Europe where the equivalent figures are 19% and 16% respectively. In the developing markets it does have the potential to skip the dependency on online banking platforms seen more in developed markets, and instead moving straight to mobile. The key here is that the infrastructure associated with financial services are less robust in some of these markets, particularly in more rural areas, but mobile phone penetration is high.
Q: Will consumers’ use of mobile banking continue to grow?
A: As consumers are increasingly leaning towards greater flexibility and the desire to address what they need "now" it is natural that usage of mobile banking will continue to proliferate for checking statements, undertaking banking transfers, NFC's etc. The question is how accepting consumers will be of mobiles as their primary payment device. It will depend also on how consumers can overcome the fear of, for instance, losing their phone - what then? This will most likely slow the proliferation of the usage of mobile technology for some services.
Q: What are the challenges that remote technologies pose for financial marketers?
A: The challenge faced by financial service brands in the face of remote technologies is how they can maintain a relationship with consumers. Brands understand that they need to progress beyond a transactional relationship with their consumers and create more loyal customers in the long run. This often means driving a combination of brand proximity, relevance and direct positive consumer experience. If consumers are entering into a more remote means of interaction with their financial service providers, then it becomes harder for brands to build that engagement with their consumers. As such marketers need to think more about a balanced marketing strategy as well as the need to ensure that customer touch points, be it through the branch, Relationship Managers, etc., constantly meet consumers’ expectations when they step outside of remote servicing channels and have a human interaction with their bank.