In today’s digital economy, traditional financial institutions are facing annihilation by new players. Fintechs, start-ups and even giants like Google and Amazon are swiftly invading the space where banks have lingered in dominance for centuries. “The banks have long neglected digitizing their value chain,” says economist Anand Swaminathan. “Overworked and bloated IT systems, old habits and new regulatory requirements slow their efforts.”
However, one financial institution, JPMorgan Chase & Co., has made a bold move to digitally transform. Serving nearly half of America’s households, with assets of more than $2.5 trillion and operations worldwide, their ambition has paid off, recently being named “the number one global large bank” in Interbrand’s Best Global Brands.
“JPMorgan Chase has undertaken an aggressive digital transformation, which builds on the success of our current digital offerings,” as their website notes. “We are investing in innovative ways to attract customers as well as deepen customer engagement, satisfaction and profitability through the use of digital channels.”
JPMorgan Chase is so committed to digital transformation, they even highlighted it in their recently-released JP Morgan Chase—Quarterly Report. Much more than a simple nod to stay current with technology, the report features an entire 12-page chapter, titled “Digital Everything”, citing extensive research the company used to justify and support its deep digital strategy, backed by results they’ve achieved so far.
Summarizing JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s report of their digital approach, this article serves as a de facto case study on how digital transformation can be done right—with benefits that almost any organization could also take to the bank.
Intended for investors, the quarterly report quotes numerous statistics explaining “why digital matters” to the organization. These figures include the following:
High atop JPMorgan Chase’s list of reasons for going digital was their realization that their customers demand digital capabilities. “The customer is at the center of everything we do,” the report says. Their introduction of new online products was rewarded by substantial increases in several metrics. Currently, approximately 47 million Chase customers bank through digital channels, each averaging 15+ login-ins per month. Since implementation, they found that digital capabilities have resulted in:
JPMorgan Chase professes a mission: “To enable delivery of highly personalized, real-time experiences that customers increasingly expect.” The company highlighted four key areas in which customers rely on Chase’s digital offerings throughout their daily lives.
Choice
Security
Ease of doing business
Personalization
Furthermore, Chase noted that digital capabilities streamlined, simplified and enhanced the client onboarding process across the bank, making it easy to not only become a client, but seamless to add products and services. This resulted in:
JPMorgan Chase noted that the move to digital also improved numerous business efficiencies, including:
A growing segment of business for JPMorgan Chase in their investment services, and new digital offerings include:
Chase provides an unprecedented continuum of offerings for businesses of all sizes and complexities. Thanks to these new digital capabilities, corporate clients can benefit from:
This shift was the product of many years of careful research and planning. In 2016, JPMorgan Chase commissioned Forrester Consulting to assess the current state of digital transactions from the perspective of consumers and corporate clients alike. The goal of this study was “to better understand the role of digital and mobile payments and to unearth insights that can help merchants prepare for tomorrow’s payment strategy opportunities.”
As a result of this study, Chase found that although adoption is slow for most high tech features (e.g. digital wallets and electronic payments), customers really like the concept of such products. Consumers even have a much more favorable impression of merchants that offer such digital options, whether they use them or not.
According to Forrester’s survey of consumers, “83 percent say that [digital] payment options, in general, have at least some impact on their willingness to buy from a business, and nearly a quarter describe that impact as large. 63 percent say being able to use a digital wallet has at least some effect on their willingness to buy from a business.”
The study made the writing on the wall clear to JPMorgan Chase. Build digital capabilities now and the consumers will come. In fact, many of them are already there. “Thirty percent of consumers are now shopping and paying for goods and services on their mobile device on a weekly basis.”
Realizing the time for a “wait and see” approach has already passed, JPMorgan Chase built their entire strategy around this one basic tenet: “To deliver an end-to-end digital experience, with capabilities across the lifecycle through the clients’ channel of choice.”
Of course, JPMorgan Chase is not the only financial institution that has embarked on a commitment to digital transformation. Wells Fargo Bank has also developed products and services that parallel the digital offerings provided by Chase and others. They are even experimenting with innovative new products such as cardless ATMs, using a single code linked to an app on the customer’s smartphone.
If you’re the executive of a financial institution or a business of any size, now is the time to start preparing for your digital transformation, if you haven’t already begun. Simplilearn can help, with our Digital Transformation Academy, which has been specially designed to offer the strategy and online training needed to help all levels of your organization upskill and succeed in the digital economy.
Strugging in the Age of Disruption? Simplilearn's Digital Academy is tailored for your organization to keep pace with the ever evolving digital landscape.
With 15 years of experience teaching and developing instructor-led training and video-based e-learning curricula, Dan is currently Director of Training Research at Simplilearn where he conducts and compiles research on the latest content and training best practices. Backed by his degree in Speech Communication and numerous certifications in Digital Marketing and aviation technologies, Dan brings insights from both sides of the training process.
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