Banco Popular de Puerto Rico

Data trails and electronic imprints have transformed the way many businesses reach customers, seek opportunities, design products, defend against risk and plan investments. But how far have data and analytics gone in supplanting intuition, rules of thumb, instinct and experience in banks’ decision-making processes? In which activities are analytics the most prevalent, the most desirable, the most challenging to implement?

While some aspects of the conventional wisdom regarding banks’ entering wealth management are accurate, the reality is far more nuanced. A recent survey of bank executives by American Banker and SourceMedia Research shows that wealth management is on many bank executives’ radars and that the coming years will see increased competition for customer relationships in this arena. This report assesses what exactly bankers mean when they think about “wealth management,” what areas they are targeting, and what hurdles to success they have identified as they seek to buttress their sources of noninterest income.

Technology companies like Apple and Samsung brought mobile payments to the fore and issues that led the U.S. to lag in mobile wallets have for the most part been settled. This report examines how a core group of banks are establishing themselves as pace-setters in attacking the challenge of remaining "top of wallet" as consumers migrate commerce to smartphones.

The macro-level decline in branches belies a much more nuanced reality — many banks below the top tier are actively scaling up and advances in branch technology are achieving deep penetration in the industry.

Regulatory risk and security and privacy concerns top bank executives' risk-related worries. The result: Higher spending on staffing and systems and departures from a range of commercial and consumer lines.

Economic, regulatory, technological, and competitive pressures have drastically altered the financial services industry, particularly in businesses that touch the American consumer. An analysis by American Banker/ SourceMedia Research shows that the transformation is far from over. Based on surveys of more than 200 financial services executives, this report offers insight into what banks have done to adapt their businesses, and what they’re likely to do next.

Almost all banks have deployed at least a basic smartphone application, but mobile’s transformational impact on the industry is still skin-deep in many corners. Theoretically, customers could do almost all their banking on a smartphone, but a very small minority even come close to doing so. How banks are planning to tackle that next challenge.

Mobile offerings have now become nearly universal across the industry, and that banks are increasing budgets to rapidly build out features as new technology emerges. At the same time, unease is evident among executives over the deployment of an ever wider array of services that do not directly generate revenue, although a rough consensus of sorts is forming around what kinds of metrics constitute an appropriate assessment of ROI in this space.

Lured by the promise of better insight into consumer needs as well as the potential for cross-sale opportunities, many bank executives are poised to add personal financial management to their consumer offerings.

Banks and credit unions understand the benefits of boosting their digital capabilities as well as the pitfalls of lagging behind.