TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth

                 The Ultimate
                  Guide to the

   TOP 2021
      BANK
CHALLENGES

1   |   mx.com
TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
About MX
MX, the leader in open finance and creator of the Money Experience category, helps the
financial industry deliver data-driven money experiences and improve the financial lives
of millions of people. With MX, banks, credit unions, and fintechs can securely connect
to the world’s financial data through account aggregation, bank APIs, and transactional
data enhancement. Founded in 2010, MX is one of the fastest-growing fintech innovators,
powering more than 2,000 financial institutions and 43 of the top 50 digital banking
providers to improve the financial lives of tens of millions of people worldwide.

   Request a Demo

                    *If you’re reading a hard copy of this guide and want to see hyperlinks to all sources cited, visit
                                                     mx.com/library/ultimate-guides

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
Executive Summary
The Top Bank Challenges

As the shift from traditional banking to digital banking accelerates in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, banks are
at risk of losing their current customers, not attracting the next generation, and ultimately becoming irrelevant.

Based on primary and secondary research included in this guide, we’ve found that these risks are often being driven
by several challenges including:

             A LEGACY                         A BROKEN APPROACH                           NOT KNOWING YOUR
             MINDSET                            TO BUILD VS. BUY                             CUSTOMERS

Fixating on costly branches and                 Building an ideal digital              Not having a 360-degree view
  in-person interactions at the            experience completely in-house              of your customers means you
 expense of digital innovation               is expensive, cumbersome,                    don’t really know them.
 increases your overhead and                           and slow.
       weighs you down.

                                    DATA                               POOR DIGITAL
                                  PARALYSIS                              BANKING

                          Neglecting your internal              Being stuck behind the curve
                        data puts you at a long-term              on digital banking features
                               disadvantage.                     cripples your ability to retain
                                                                customers and win new ones.

In this guide, we’ll outline you how you can overcome these five challenges, differentiate yourself in the market,
lower your operating costs, and become the primary financial institution for your customers.

Let’s get started.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
Introduction
Digital Challengers and the State of Banking in the Wake of a Pandemic

Unlike anything before it, the Covid-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift to digital banking. For instance, in a
global banking consumer study, Accenture Research found that half of consumers now use mobile banking at least
weekly, compared to one-third who said the same just two years ago. Accenture also found that there has been a
30% to 40% decline in US in-branch transactions over the same period.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
And Deloitte writes, “It is now abundantly clear that Covid-19 has
                     acted as a catalyst for digitization. In addition to accelerating digital

“ It is now          adoption, the crisis has also served as a litmus test for banks’ digital
                     infrastructure. While institutions that made strategic investments in
                     technology came out stronger, laggards may still be able to leapfrog
  abundantly         competitors if they take swift action to accelerate tech modernization.”

  clear that         Forrester Research has come to the same conclusion, writing, “The
                     Covid-19 pandemic has inarguably fast-tracked the digital shift. From

  Covid-19 has       entertainment to shopping, consumers all over the world have tried
                     many digital services and products for the first time. Many consumers
                     have also accessed their financial accounts online via their
  acted as a         smartphone, opened a new financial product online, or made digital
                     payments for the first time. As the majority of consumers migrate to

  catalyst for       digital-first experiences, the “early adopter” or “tech-savvy” profile
                     will apply to the mainstream market.”

  digitization.”
  digitization .”    These trends match with what we’ve found in our original consumer
                     research. For instance, 87% of the 1,000 random U.S. consumers we
 DELOITTE RESEARCH   surveyed for this guide say they’re now visiting their bank branch less
                     often than they did before the pandemic. And 89% say they’re using
                     mobile banking more often.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
In addition, 87% say they have an account with a digital-only banking service, with 81% saying they’re more likely to use
such services in the future.

All of this data correlates with a trend that Ron Shevlin, Managing Director of Fintech Research at Cornerstone
Advisors, has discovered. He writes, “In January 2020, just 4% of Gen Zers and Millennials considered a checking
account from a challenger bank their primary account. By December 2020, that percentage had grown to 15%.”

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
That growth rate — nearly 3x in under a year — was likely propelled in part by the Covid-19 pandemic and the
decreased desire many people feel about venturing to a bank branch. For instance, our primary consumer research in
the Ultimate Guide to the New World of Banking shows that 36% of people say they don’t plan to go into the branch as
often as they did before the pandemic, even after all restrictions have been lifted.

                                                 These branch-wary sentiments almost certainly represent a
                                                 sustained shift toward increased digital banking use and not just a
                                                 passing trend. As Parker Conrad, co-founder and chief executive
                                                 officer at the IT platform Rippling, asks, “Who wants to go back to
                                                 filling out insurance paperwork with a pen and trying to find a fax
                                                 machine? No one.” Likewise, as more people realize how many of

TWO-THIRDS                                       their typical banking processes they can do via a digital device,
                                                 the desire to return to physical methods (such as signing a bunch
  of customers at Chime, the most                of paperwork) will diminish. It’s no wonder that the global research
  popular digital fintech challenger,            team at CACI estimates that by 2022, 88% of all interactions at
   name it as their primary bank.                banks will be mobile.

What’s perhaps even more worrisome for traditional banks is that Cornerstone Advisors also found that two-thirds of
customers at Chime, the most popular digital fintech challenger, name it as their primary bank.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
This places Chime high on the list — just barely behind Citi — of institutions with the most people in the U.S. who call it
their primary bank.

If Chime were just another traditional player on this list, that would be one thing. But given that they’re a company
that saw a 3x increase in young customers in under a year, it doesn’t bode well for traditional financial institutions —
particularly those institutions that don’t have a solid digital strategy to win over future generations.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
In fact, Accenture’s study found that 17-18% of young people say they already use a neobank for most of
their transactions.

To win these future generations, financial institutions must partner with leading fintech providers that can give their
customers (especially their young customers) a digital experience that competes with upcoming challengers. Without
help on the digital front, it’s bound to only become more difficult to retain the edge that traditional players have held in
this space. Fortunately, there are many fintech companies, including MX, that partner to help traditional banks offer a
customized mobile banking experience that wows customers.

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TOP 2021 BANK CHALLENGES - The Ultimate Guide to the - Connectivity + Data + Experience = Growth
But it’s not just basic account services people are looking for. It’s also a better lending experience. This is partly why
the share of personal loans that have gone to fintech companies has been climbing from 2013 to 2018 (the latest data
currently available).

What’s more, the average personal loan size at a fintech is nearly as large as those offered by banks, with
TransUnion pinning the average amount from a fintech at $10,338 and the average amount from a bank at $13,514.

It’s no wonder that bank executives are focused on a key set of priorities right now, leading with improving the
digital experience.

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What often gets overlooked is the fact that a foundation has to be
                     laid before a bank can truly improve the digital experience for

“ It all starts      their customers.

  with changing      Here are the steps you can take to get there.
                       1. Adopt a digital-first mindset

  your mindset
                       2. Get beyond build vs. buy
                       3. Know your customers with a 360-degree view
                       4. Build a data flywheel
  and culture.”
         culture.”     5. Optimize and personalize the digital banking experience

                     It all starts with changing your mindset and culture.

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Step #1
Adopt a Digital-first Mindset
For centuries, people were stuck with whatever bank had good enough service at a location close enough to them.
They wanted banking nearby.

But a phone in the pocket is even nearer than a branch down the street. And that changes everything. As Chris
Skinner, author of Digital Bank, puts it, “We built an industry on the physical distribution of paper in a localized world,
and we’re now having to get to grips with the digital distribution of data in a networked world.”

Unfortunately, too many bankers still haven’t realized the full implications of this shift or the need to flip old models on
their head. To illustrate this need in his book Banking on Digital Growth, James Robert Lay, CEO at the Digital Growth
Institute, talks about a pyramid growth model. He writes, “When digital came on the scene, digital was bolted onto the
pyramid, retrofitted to the old structure.”

But, as Lay shows, that approach no longer works. Today, digital must be the primary entry point at a bank. This means
that the traditional pyramid must be flipped:

                                                                 Lay writes, “What we’re trying to do is flip the growth
                                                                 pyramid upside down: transform the entire growth model
                                                                 so it’s now three-fifths digital and two-fifths physical — at
                                                                 a very minimum — as digital becomes the primary driver
                                                                 for growth, regardless of whether someone applies
                                                                 online, calls into a call center, or comes into a physical
                                                                 branch location to apply for a product. Digital is the heart
                                                                 of the consumer buying journey. With the new pyramid,
                                                                 your growth model will reflect that. In fact, maybe digital
                                                                 might become four-fifths — or even 100 percent — of
                                                                 your growth pyramid.”

                                                                 This process requires adopting a digital-first mindset
                                                                 from top to bottom at your organization.

                                                                 How do you do this?

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“ Can you                                           1. Find or hire a core group of digital enthusiasts.

  communicate                                       Start small. Find a group of people who are enthusiastic about —
                                                    and have the know-how — to enact a digital-first approach. What

  your vision                                       does digital onboarding look like? What does digital lending look
                                                    like? What does digital card issuance look like? You’ll want people

  for digital                                       who have a clear, simple, and enthusiastic response to these
                                                    questions — people who are willing to envision the possibility of
                                                    eventually becoming a digital-only bank. These people are your
  transformation                                    digital braintrust.

  in five                                           2. Get a unified vision.
                                                    The goal here isn’t to get 100% agreement on every possible way

  minutes                                           forward. Rather, the goal is to find areas of consensus wherever
                                                    you can and be clear about what you need to de-prioritize. Ask

  or less                                           for a list from each person in your digital braintrust about how
                                                    they think becoming digital-first could most help their teams,

  and get an
                                                    departments, and company. Then look at where the suggestions
                                                    overlap and start there.

  enthusiastic,                                     3. Refine your vision to a 5-minute pitch.
                                                    How do you know when you’ve arrived at an effective vision? John

  informed                                          Kotter, chairman at Kotter, Inc, gives a useful rule of thumb, saying,
                                                    “if you can’t communicate the vision to someone in five minutes

  response? ”                                       or less and get a reaction that signifies both understanding and
                                                    interest, you are not yet done with this phase of the transformation
                                                    process.” Ask yourself how you fare on this front. Can you
 JAMES ROBERT LAY                                   communicate your vision for digital transformation in five minutes
 Banking on Digital Growth                          or less and get an enthusiastic, informed response? If not, keep
                                                    refining — paying attention to how your vision ties to a tangible
                                                    return on your investment.

 4. Track your success.
 When you start any initiative, you need to know what success will look like when you finish. To do this, you’ll need a
 way to track progress and success — preferably in an easily accessible and dynamic dashboard that everyone can
 see. At MX, for instance, we put our metrics on TV screens throughout the office, monitor unified dashboards, use
 proprietary algorithms to track interactions internally, and more. Fortunately, digital-first banking makes tracking easier
 than ever.

 5. Repeat your vision everywhere.
 To become a digital-first bank, you’ll need everyone to know what you’re doing. Talk about being digital-first in your
 hiring guides. Hang your approach on the wall in your offices. Weave it into your emails and instant messages. Mention
 it in company meetings. Whatever it takes to make digital-first top of mind. After all, changing your culture requires way
 more than a single email message. It requires changing habits, and changing habits requires constant reminders.

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A Case Study in Going Digital-First: Citizens Bank of Edmond

     Jill Castilla, CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond, tells of her experience transforming a bank that was more than
     110 years old into a digital-first bank — most pivotally with the decision to sell their branches in favor of digital
     banking, ITMs, and a single, premium lobby. “When I started sharing the economics through staff meetings
     with all of our team members, I would have tellers raising their hands and asking, ‘Why are they keeping these
     branches if they’re losing us so much money, and we’re saying we want to be around for the long term?’ We’re
     really fortunate our bank is owned a third by our employees through an employee-stock-ownership program,
     so those tellers are my shareholders. Having that come from them, through sharing the analytics and the
     information, really helped us get the buy-in.”

     Still, the transition wasn’t easy. Castilla says, “This board designed those branches. They built them. They were
     part of the site selection so there was a lot of pride attached to them.”

     Eventually, Citizens had an offer for all their branches and managed to move forward. Castilla says, “We
     were able to retain the deposits, just in how we communicated with customers. And then we deployed some
     technology to take the place of the drive-through near where those bank branches were. And we were able to
     have net customer growth as a result. A lot of it was about just being really transparent.”

     Above all, the goal wasn’t just to replace branches with technology for the sake of technology, but to instead
     be driven by what’s ultimately best for customers. “Technology, from a banking standpoint, gives us a great
     level of care for the financial wellbeing of the people that we serve,” Castilla says. “There's not just a digital
     representation of the bank, but the human aspect of it — that piece is combined. And so a bank that is intuitive,
     both from a human standpoint as well as a digital standpoint ... is able to guide customers to achieve the dreams
     that they have for their businesses and for their lives.”

     Human-centered digital banking. That’s the key to a successful digital-first plan.

“ A bank that is intuitive, both from a human
  standpoint as well as a digital standpoint
  ... is able to guide customers to achieve
  the dreams that they have for their
  businesses and for their lives.”
                              lives.”
 JILL CASTILLA
 CEO of Citizens Bank of Edmond

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Step #2
Get Beyond Build vs. Buy
The history of banking — like so many industries — has been a history of building and buying.

There’s nothing new about it. When a bank executive decides they need a new branch, they don’t assign their tellers
or loan officers to the task. Instead, they do what they’ve more or less always done: Contract outside specialists to
construct it.

What’s changed today is that banks now have full-time internal employees who can build digital banking solutions
directly. This forces banks to ask the difficult question of whether they should build or buy their way through the digital
transformation.

And yet a fixation on building or buying negates a third option, which is to partner to create an ever-evolving and
adaptable banking platform.

This partner-centered approach helps banks on two fronts.

First, it saves banks from the endless headaches that inevitably follow building everything from scratch. As Forrester
Consulting writes, "Development teams are often bullish when it comes to how fast they think they can complete
customer-facing projects, but those expectations often do not match reality." Forrester’s research shows that 42%
of development teams at banks thought they'd complete their in-house project in less than six months, while only a
quarter of projects wrapped up in that time frame. Forrester writes, "The bottom line is that development teams aren’t
delivering customer-facing applications and services that are quick to update."

                                                      “ The bottom line is that
                                                        development teams
              42%
   of development teams at banks
                                                        aren’t delivering
                                                        customer-facing
  thought they'd complete their in-
house project in less than six months,                  applications & services
                                                        that are quick to update.”
   while only a quarter of projects
   wrapped up in that time frame.

                                                          Forrester Research

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Second, a partner-centered approach gives banks an added measure of flexibility that can't be reached via buying
solutions alone. Again, Forrester writes, "While conventional thinking dictates that internally-developed platforms
deliver greater flexibility at lower costs, actual results from transformation efforts show otherwise."

In light of all of this, Forrester writes that "technology decision makers must abandon the traditional ‘buy versus build’
mentality, and instead adopt a ‘buy, build, extend, and assemble’ approach to creating a banking development platform
that takes full advantage of the benefits of commercial components where possible.”

Another way to think of the “buy, build, extend, and assemble” model is as a series of partnerships. This mirrors a
strategy outlined by Jane Fraser, president of Citi and CEO of Global Consumer Banking, which she describes as "a
light branch footprint, seamless digital capabilities, and a network of partners that expand our reach to hundreds of
millions of customers.”

                                                               Partnering in this way brings together the best aspects of
                                                               building products from scratch (i.e., flexibility and control)
                                                               alongside the best aspects of buying products outright
                                                               (i.e., a quick rollout). The concept is captured well in the
                                                               following quadrant from The Framework Bank, which
                                                               illustrates the advantage of choosing to partner. It also
                                                               shows that anything that doesn't have high strategic
                                                               priority or urgency should rightly be deprioritized.

                                                               Here’s a breakdown that illustrates each option:

                                                               Build: Best if you want total ownership, a full
                                                               development team, and a long timeline.

                                                               Buy: Best if you have a limited development team and
                                                               have a short timeline.

                                                               Partner: Best if you want flexibility, a partial development
                                                               team, and have a short or medium timeline.

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When a partnership works well, this spirit of collaboration fuels innovation across both teams. As Brandon Dewitt, CTO
at MX, writes, “Financial institutions can leverage third parties for their agile approach and rapid innovation, allowing
them to allocate resources more strategically, expand lines of business, and reduce errors in production. These new
innovations will help your financial institution compete more effectively and gives customers better, smarter and more
advanced tools to manage their financial lives.”

In short, partnering enables the best of both worlds: flexibility plus speed to market. Just look at the variety of
approaches available via the MX cross-platform mobile framework, which gives banks the ability to quickly iterate, port
custom features, and stand up a range of design choices. With this framework, banks can innovate in weeks, not years
— and do it on their terms.

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Step #3
                                Know Your Customers With a
                                360-Degree View

                                Once you have a digital-first mindset and a partner-driven approach
                                to digital banking, traditional banks have to pivot from thinking of the
                                niche of locality to thinking of the niche of persona. Who exactly are you
                                trying to reach, and what is the job they want done? What is your market
                                differentiation? How do you position yourself in a competitive market?

                                These are questions that challenger banks are asking to effective ends. As
                                Ron Shevlin writes, “Challenger banks like Bank Boulevard (which caters
                                to black consumers), Daylight (focusing on LGBT consumers), and Panacea
                                Financial (serving physicians) are carving out defensible market niches by
                                focusing on the unique needs of definable segments of the market. In some
                                respects, challenger banks have become the new “community” bank. It’s
                                just that the communities they serve aren’t geographic communities, but
                                affinity-based communities.”

                                For too long, traditional banks and credit unions have relied on vague
                                notions of customer service and location to win and retain customers.
                                Unfortunately, that approach no longer works. You have to get specific,
 Who exactly are you trying
to reach, and what is the job   spelling out exactly who you want to reach and how you’ll help them do the
      they want done?           job they need to get done.

                                    “ In some respects,
                                      challenger banks have
                                      become the new
                                      “community” bank.”
                                                    bank.”
                                       RON SHEVLIN
                                       Managing Director of Fintech Research at
                                       Cornerstone Advisors

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Sam Maule, Key Account Executive at Google, says that when he consults with banks, he focuses on the root problem.
“We don't start with a product,” he says. “We start with the job they're trying to get done. … What is it they're trying to
do? What are they trying to actually get done? It requires actually diving in with the customers and talking with them
and understanding what their intent is, what they are facing, and what all the touchpoints are that surround them. If you
start there, it's amazing. Come out of that in the conversations and what product you'll eventually come to and what
will actually work and what solution you're solving. And I guarantee you it won't be where you thought you were going
to go.” Maule adds, “There's not a one size fits all strategy. … What's critical is to find out what's unique to your DNA,
what's unique to your customers that you're servicing, and you should own that.”

So, what’s unique to your DNA?

You have to find your niche — the group you want to reach. And it can’t just be about location and customer service.

To do this well, you need a 360-degree view of your customers, replete with their internal and external accounts.

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A 360-Degree View:
The Key to Knowing Your Customers
In a prior ultimate guide, we asked U.S. consumers how valuable it is or would be to see their financial accounts
in one app. Nearly half (48%) said that it would be very valuable, while nearly the same percentage (43%) said it
would be somewhat valuable, adding up to 91%.

Despite the overwhelming majority who said this feature would be valuable, only 40% said their bank currently
offers it. This represents a remarkable disconnect between what consumers and what financial organizations are
providing them.

Put simply, people want the ability to sign into a single place and see everything — checking, savings, car loan,
mortgage, 401(k), etc. — in one view. They want to see balances and transactions together so they don’t have to
sign into a separate account to get a full sense of their finances.

And yet financial organizations still haven’t fully implemented solutions on this front, as evidenced by the 60% of
consumers who say they don’t have this ability.

Put simply, people want the ability to sign
into a single place and see everything —
checking, savings, car loan, mortgage,
401(k), etc. — in one view.

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What these organizations might not realize is that enabling customers
                                    to see all their data in one place also benefits them in the form of being
                                    able to gather a 360-degree view of each customer’s financial life. In this
                                    way, financial organizations can better understand their customers and
                                    make hyper-relevant offers that meet each customer where they are. It
                                    also gives financial organizations insights against direct competitors each
                                    time a customer aggregates a financial account from that competitor. (If
                                    you aren’t seeing what your competitors are doing via aggregation, your
                                    competitors might be doing it to you.)

                                    Traditionally, aggregation has happened via screen scraping from
                                    third parties that don’t have a formal relationship with the organization
                                    they scrape from. However, this process is quickly changing today, as
                                    more organizations are shifting to whitelisting data aggregators and
                                    implementing direct APIs. These new options bring many benefits to
                                    financial organizations that previously didn’t exist, including added
                                    transparency, clearer permissions, and increased security.

                                    As more financial institutions implement APIs, direct aggregation methods
                                    will become standard. This move will enable increased innovation since
                                    customer-permissioned data sharing is often bi-directional, meaning
  What these organizations          that financial institutions and fintech companies can share and receive
   might not realize is that
                                    data from the sources they connect with via API. This capability sets up

ENABLING                            all parties involved to use that data in creative ways to best serve and
                                    advocate for their customers.
 customers to see all their data
    in one place also benefits      Above all, this customer-centered approach to banking is at the heart of
 them in the form of being able     where things are headed. And that’s terrific news for the 91% of consumers
to gather a 360-degree view of      who value account aggregation — as well as the financial organizations
  each customer’s financial life.   who offer it.

                                          This customer-centered
                                          approach to banking is
                                          at the heart of where
                                          things are headed.

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Step #4
Build a Data Flywheel

Data-enabled disruption has overtaken key industries again and again, perhaps most famously when Netflix and
Amazon overpowered competitors from Blockbuster to Sears .

To get a sense for how massive this change has been, look at how Amazon’s market capitalization grew from
2006 to now — an increase of more than 5000% compared to a increase of roughly 30% for Walmart and a
decrease of 100% for Sears.

While the primary benefit Amazon provides is an effortless, one-click experience where products show up on your
doorstep two days after purchasing them, data powers everything behind the scenes.

It works like this: The more engaged users that Amazon has, the more user data they acquire. This data helps
them offer a more compelling experience to these users (and promote their own products), which in turn drives up
the number of profitable users. The whole cycle is a flywheel that spins faster and faster with each turn, widening
the gap between Amazon and their competitors.

Financial institutions can and should leverage this same data flywheel effect. After all, they collectively capture
trillions of data points, creating a goldmine of essential insights on end users.

To do it well, focus on data aggregation, data enhancement, data analytics, and data discovery. All of this
represents the foundation of all effective digital experiences.

You have to lay the right foundation.

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Data Aggregation

Aggregation enables users to see all their accounts and transactions in one place. For example, if ACME Financial

offers account aggregation, users can log in and view data from potentially anywhere they have a financial
account — all through ACME Financial banking portal. In short, aggregation turns ACME Financial into a one-stop
financial hub.

The process generally requires either “scraping” a financial institution’s website by mimicking human behavior
or connecting directly through a data exchange. Of the two, connecting via a data exchange is a vastly better
experience since it’s the fastest and most secure way to aggregate financial accounts.

However it happens, data aggregation empowers both the end user and the financial institution. The end user sees
all their finances in one place, and the financial institution gathers all the data it needs to best help their end users.

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Data Enhancement

Of course, it’s not enough to just aggregate data — largely because raw transaction data is often totally
incomprehensible. Who knows what a transaction description like CSI-308613/22120-CHV refers to?

The fact is that consumers feel frustrated with unclear transcription descriptions, with 71% of consumers saying it
happens at least yearly and 17% saying it happens at least once a month.

This results in user frustration, complaints to your call center, and a negative perception of your brand. In addition,
it does little to help you understand your account holders. How can you make use of the data to empower people
to be financially strong if the data isn’t clean?

If you’re going to fix this problem, you’ll want transaction data that has been cleansed, categorized, and classified.

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Cleanse

When your users can’t understand a transaction description, they don’t get upset with the vendor or the card
provider. They get upset with you. They dial in to your call center and drain your employee’s time. You can prevent
this problem by cleaning all descriptions.

Categorize

Your users are looking for help with their finances, and they don’t want to spend all their time tracking their
spending habits. By adding automatic categorization to your transaction feeds, you help these account holders
better manage their money while improving user loyalty, driving revenue growth, and paving the way for future
technology.

Augment

When you properly augment transactions, you can see which of your users’ transactions are marked as bill pay,
direct deposit, fees, and more — giving you the ability to more precisely target end users. For instance, you might
target account holders who use bill pay with your competitors to use bill pay with you instead (amping up your
bottom line). You might also append demographic data and purchase behavior to make it even more powerful for
eventual targeting.

Enhancing transactions this way — through cleansing, categorizing, and augmenting — sets the right foundation
for not only a better mobile experience but also for whatever the future may bring. For instance, if you want to
offer voice-assistance or AI-enabled features, you need clean data. (These features are useless without it.) As Ron
Shevlin, Managing Director of Fintech Research at Cornerstone Advisors, asks, “If you don't have good data and
analytics capabilities, what good will an AI-first strategy do?” You have to lay the right foundation with data before
you start dreaming of an advanced user experience.

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Data Analytics

Do you know how many of your account holders use your digital products at least weekly? Do you know how
many have aggregated an external account? Or what percentage have a loan with you?

If you have this information, is it easily accessible or is it buried in a database that’s difficult to view?

To transform into the digital era, you’ll want all essential data to be instantly available via a realtime dashboard.
This might include total users over time, number of accounts per user, sessions per user, mortgages by
organization, credit cards by interest rate, and much more — all of which is available via MX Analytics. Best of all,
with machine learning available via MX Pulse, this data can be used for predictive purposes, giving you the ability
to truly benefit your customers.

All of this culminates in an optimal digital experience.

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Step #5
Optimize and Personalize the
Digital Experience

Once you’ve adopted a digital-first mindset, laid out a partnership strategy, started to know your customers via a
360-degree view, and built a data flywheel, you’re in the perfect place to optimize the digital experience — a task
that’s more important than ever.

As Paul McAdam, senior director of banking intelligence at J.D. Power says, “With fewer customers visiting
branches, it will be important for retail banks to replace the in-person service they would have provided with
personalized services delivered instead through digital channels.“ He adds, “Given the technology available to
banks, customer pain points with digital should be easy to address. Let’s keep in mind that digital retail banking
was introduced 25 years ago. Executing basic user-friendly functionality, providing a full range of services and
offering easy ways to pay and move money are areas where banks could improve their digital offerings.”

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What’s more, all three primary trends in a 2021 trends report from Javelin
                                  Research align with optimizing the digital experience. They write, “The
                                  pandemic has heightened the pressure on FIs in three key ways — to develop
                                  new and better ways to help consumers monitor and manage their finances,
                                  to deliver personalized advice in digital channels, and to better satisfy the
                                  next generation of consumers.”

                                  With the foundation of connectivity and data enhancement, you’re well on
                                  your way to help in all three of these areas. For instance, MX Pulse enables
                                  financial services companies to offer a newsfeed of personalized insights that
                                  empowers users to be financially strong. Users can view a list of everything
                                  they currently subscribe to (and might be surprised to know how much it all
                                  adds up). They can also see notifications about how they’re doing in real time
                                  and even see offers for products that might be a better fit for them, a feature
                                  that, as we mentioned above, 94% of consumers say they want.

                                  How are you doing on this front? Can you see whether a customer’s
                                  mortgage rate with your competitor is too high? Can you see whether they’re
                                  paying too much for a car loan?

     94%
of consumers say they want to
                                  With the foundation of aggregated and enhanced data, coupled with the AI
                                  of Pulse, you can make these hyper-personalized experiences a reality and
                                  protect, guide, and inform your customers.

be notified about how they're     The system learns, based on each user’s financial patterns and choices, how
 doing in real time and even      to make the experience unique to them.
  see offers for products that
might be a better fit for them.   Here are just a few examples of what’s possible.

                                        How are you doing on
                                        this front? Can you see
                                        whether a customer’s
                                        mortgage rate with your
                                        competitor is too high?
                                        Can you see whether
                                        they’re paying too much
                                        for a car loan?
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As you             Protect

guide your         Giving your customers immediate and personalized alerts around potential
                   fraud saves you time and money, especially as it relates to what could

customers          otherwise become a cumbersome legal process that wraps up your contact
                   center. In addition, helping customers avoid unwise spending habits leads to

step by
                   long-term trust.

                      Duplicate payment detected

step to               Uncategorized transactions

                      Higher subscription amount notification
financial          Guide
strength,          As you guide your customers step by step to financial strength, you pave the

you pave
                   way for them to build their savings with you.

                      Savings opportunity

the way               Monthly subscriptions

                      Budget notifications
for them to        Inform
build their        By helping your customers know exactly what’s happening with their money
                   in a way that is far less cumbersome than budgeting, you transform from an
savings            intermediary to a true advocate.

with you.             Upcoming subscriptions

                      Payroll advance notification

                      Debt payment reminders

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A Personalized, Full Money Experience

These examples are just a small insight into the possibilities of Pulse, which caters to the individual needs of each
user. As you can see from these examples, the right foundation gives you the ability to use this data to make hyper-
personalized offers, win business directly from your competitors, and positively impact the lives of your customers. It
sets you up to help people manage their money, offer personalized advice and appeal to the next generation — just as
Javelin suggests you should do in 2021.

With all of this at play, you’re also set to ensure you’re offering a mobile experience that goes well beyond what’s
considered table stakes — an experience that offers all of the mobile banking features that customers most demand,
shown in a consumer survey from Business Insider.

By offering a personalized and full-feature money experience like this, you’ll be able to withstand new competition from
challenger banks for years to come.

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Conclusion: Money Experience = Growth

In the end, people want value and convenience. For example, KPMG’s “Future of Retail Banking” report shows that
the key purchase drivers for consumers are the value for their money, followed by the ease of buying. Given that
transactions done on a mobile device are exponentially cheaper for banks than transactions done in a branch, over
time improving the digital experience will yield a high return on investment.

This is how the battle over the future of banking will go: Those institutions that can successfully adopt a digital-first
mindset, partner with the right fintech providers, offer a 360-degree view, create a data flywheel, and optimize the
digital experience will be able to hold their own no matter what a challenger bank throws at them. It will be a tough
transition and it’s certain to result in ongoing industry consolidation, but those that take the lead will find themselves
enjoying unprecedented growth.

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Learn more about the fastest way to help your small
                                 business customers.

                  Contact us at 801-669-5500 or schedule a demo below.

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