Finovate Presenters Deliver on Omnichannel Banking
Banks have struggled for several years now to offer an omnichannel customer experience that is seamless and consistent across all channels. Silos and complex IT infrastructures often hinder bank IT organizations from offering this more customer-friendly service delivery model. But two presenters at Finovate this week -- Malauzai Software and MX (formerly MoneyDesktop) -- unveiled new solutions that offer the seamless cross-channel digital experience that banks have been striving for.
MoneyDesktop has been best known as a PFM solutions provider, but the winner of its fifth straight Finovate Best of Show award rebranded itself as MX with a new digital omnichannel banking solution called Helios.
[Check out more of our coverage from Finovate this week: How Will Consumers Pay in the Future? Any Way They Want.]
“PFM -- its destiny -- is full integration with other products and solutions. It’s exciting to see that come to fruition with Helios. Its whole [purpose] is to help technology providers and financial institutions deploy fully seamless cross-channel experiences,” Ryan Caldwell, the company’s CEO and founder said at the conference.
Helios combines mobile and online banking features with financial management tools in a single app with one source of native code. When a bank launches new products or solutions, it can deploy it across mobile, tablet, and online channels by re-configuring that one source of code, rather than having to do so multiple times across different channels. “You code once, and deploy everywhere,” he remarked. Helios will also be integrated with MX’s marketing solutions, Insight and Target, to enable cross-channel marketing and targeted offers based on customers’ behavior and interests.
Malauzai also released an omnichannel product called SmartwebApps, which utilizes browser-based tools to deliver a native mobile app experience to the online channel. This allows banks to bring the simplified and intuitive experience customers are used to in mobile to the online channel, without sacrificing any of the functionality of online banking, Robb Gaynor, Malauzai Software’s chief product officer said.
“This is a challenge to the Internet banking companies. This is a different experience [than that which consumers are used to online]. We see an opportunity to come in and do something disruptive,” Gaynor commented. “We said, ‘What do we want our Web app to look like?’ We want it to look just like our tablet app.”
Malauzai’s traditional base of mobile banking customers has mostly been made up of community banks and credit unions that often can’t afford the investment necessary to deliver an omnichannel experience. Gaynor said that Malauzai would now be able to help those smaller clients catch up to their bigger competitors that can afford that investment. “Smaller banks usually have different vendors and platforms [that they’re working with]. It’s hard for them to get to omnichannel, but now we’re helping them do that.”
Both Malauzai’s and MX’s solutions are refreshing examples of technology providers solving real problems that banks are challenged in solving themselves. They also both put a premium on a natural user-friendly experience, something that banks are going to have to deliver now as new players like Apple and Amazon are likely to raise the stakes on customer experience in financial services.
The next challenge will likely be finding new and better ways to integrate the experience between the digital and non-digital channels like the branch and call center. That’s something that Malauzai is already considering, since it is building employee-facing mobile apps that exactly mirror the customer-facing apps it offers. The employees see what the customers see and can help them learn how to use their apps better. “The teller will be using the same app as the customer, and that can enable an assisted self-service experience,” Gaynor explained.
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Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio