Part 2 of the ‘Ready for the re-build? Re-thinking the value of digital infrastructure’ series from Banking Circle, this white paper looks at attitudes to digital in the UK and Europe’s financial services sector, and how far these have been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Interviewees made it clear that the pandemic is accelerating digital delivery of existing services, the use of digital channels and the digitalisation of the underlying processes.

The paper also examines attitudes to financial infrastructure and how lingering resistance can be overcome to ensure organisations have the flexibility to respond to future change. Feedback from the survey and interviews showed industry-wide optimism for the future. A substantially different picture from a decade ago.

Key findings include:

• 93% agree that customers value experience more than they value institutional stability
• 90% are building technology design and architecture into their business planning
• 80% of retail banks and 74% of commercial banks have already worked with infrastructure providers
• Just 14% were unable to realise the efficiencies they set out to achieve from more flexible, outsourced infrastructure

The financial enterprise of tomorrow has already arrived. Accelerated by COVID-19, financial institutions have embraced digital and are better able to serve customers, collaborate with partners, and respond to changing markets – including the new, pandemic-induced normal and the idea of a digital future.

There’s little value in telling members of the ecosystem that they need to embrace more collaborative ways of working, find efficiencies from digital, or introduce new forms of infrastructure. They have already done so.

This paper looks at the signs of a sector transformed and ready for whatever happens next.