Banks will make increasing use of service-oriented architecture and business-process management as they seek to deepen customer relationships, according to a report released Monday by BearingPoint and Datamonitor.
The report, based on interviews with chief information officers at leading global banks, revealed five dimensions of change that will characterize the industry over the next five to ten years: worldwide expansion, process efficiency, greater customer sophistication, emergence of new competition, and increased regulatory demands.
The need for transformation is being driven by a trend toward commoditization of transaction-based products, which is causing banks to leverage their most important asset—information. The maturity of transactional banking services will force banks "to understand customer profitability and risk more accurately," said Cece Sutton, head of retail banking at Wachovia Corp., in a statement.
