financial services

“Insurance is sold, not bought.” This industrywide perception has gone unchallenged for decades, reaffirming agent- and advisor-based distribution models. But now a plethora of insurtech startups such as Brolly in the UK, Gabi in the US, and PolicyPal in Singapore aim to help customers find suitable cover. A newcomer among the firms digitalizing insurance distribution […]

Financial services firms are on the hunt. They’re hunting unicorns. As firms like Revolut and TransferWise attain valuations of $1 billion or more, the pressure to find the Stripes of this world before their value skyrockets has never been stronger. But it’s not just the unicorns that firms are hunting. They’re also chasing the wolpertinger. […]

Wealth management is not a sleepy market, but the core business model and operations have remained relatively stable while other industries have been immediately — and in some cases — viciously affected by empowered customers and the dizzying pace of digital. It is already clear that younger customers are captivated by fintech and insurtech providers. They are willing to experiment and, in […]

Fintech is white-hot. Venture capital and private equity firms just can’t get enough of it. You’re probably thinking that fintech has been hyped for years now, but Q2 2018 turned out to be the largest quarter of private investment dollars we’ve seen in this category — EVER. Fintech is a parent category of technology that includes […]

Customer experience leaders grow revenue faster than CX laggards, drive higher brand preference, and can charge more for their products. Based on a survey of more than 110,000 US adult customers in 2018, Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) methodology measures how well a brand’s customer experience strengthens the loyalty of its customers so that […]

Back in 2009, Forrester launched its first customer experience forum. We picked New York as the location because for years we’d put on a financial services event there, and we knew that our attendees from the banking, brokerage, and insurance industries all had CX on their minds. We didn’t know how well the new event […]

TL;DR: It has been a slow, fragmented start to open banking, but the pace will accelerate. Fintechs are forging ahead with innovation, and a new set of intermediary service providers is growing. Banks need to become outside-in fast to thrive with open banking, building operating model competence for an externally oriented business. Few Banks Place […]

AI, blockchain, chatbot, digital identity, etc. — there’s enough emerging technology in financial services to fill a whole alphabet book. And it’s difficult not to get swept off your feet by visions of bionic men, self-executing smart contracts, and virtual assistants that anticipate our every need. Investing in emerging technology is one of the main […]

Having trekked between the ExCel convention center and central London for most of last week – Finovate Europe moved to this larger and more remote location from the historical Old Billingsgate Hall this year – I can’t help but think that the changed location and format of the event reflect the wider changes happening in […]

As a CX professional, you’ve surely designed and delivered some experiences you’re proud of, but does your company do it reliably, time and time again? Next month at Forrester’s CX Europe Forum in London, I’ll be joined by 600 CX leaders and innovators to focus on precisely that: How to achieve breakaway CX by transforming […]

In this year’s Customer Experience Index, Forrester ranked and measured CX quality of 28 US direct and traditional retail banks brands. The research is based on Forrester’s CX Index methodology, which measures how well a brand’s CX strengthens the loyalty of its customers. After analyzing the new data, we found that two stalwarts of CX […]

Forrester’s CX team is putting the final touches on Human + Machine, our customer experience forum in San Francisco for 2017.  This year we shine a spotlight on how AI can improve customer experience. That includes both how companies innovate with AI today, and the most exciting opportunities for tomorrow. We’re starting out with a case […]

[this blog post was co-authored by Michael Chirokas] A year ago, Forrester published a report that listed Eleven Mobile Features That More Banks Should Offer. Unsurprisingly, our ongoing research continues to uncover new mobile services that belong on banks’ road maps. Recently, we came across another feature that several startups offer but that we haven’t seen […]

In the latest episode of Forrester’s What It Means podcast, Senior Analyst Peter Wannemacher discusses how the traditional banking model is fracturing – making way for an open model that will reward those banks that adapt to customer expectations and behaviors unlike those that helped shape the current model; a fintech market that is creating a low level […]

In last week’s episode of Forrester’s What It Means podcast, Principal Analyst Martha Bennett disentangles the hype from the reality of blockchain technology — and provides a passionate perspective on blockchain’s potential as an economic engine. Podcast transcript Victor Milligan: Hi, I’m Victor Milligan. Jennifer Isabella: And I’m Jennifer Isabella. Victor Milligan: Your co-hosts for Forrester’s podcast, What It Means, where we explore the […]

Not long ago, Forrester published a report that listed “Eleven Mobile Features That More Banks Should Offer.” These features are nifty and valuable mobile services that a majority of banks worldwide don’t offer. As a follow-up to this research, we thought that we’d share three additional mobile banking features that we see more companies rolling […]

As we move closer to the end of January 2017, one thing’s for sure: digital financial innovation shows no signs of abating in Asia Pacific, and a series of financial technology (fintech) startups continue to put Singapore and Hong Kong firmly on the innovation map. Just last week Next Money held its Fintech Finals 2017 […]

This time of the year is significant not only because of the never-ending amount of Christmas log cakes (or puddings) that we guiltily consume without restraint at our offices, it is also when we sit together to talk about everything that has transpired in the past year. As we go into the festivities over the […]

Banks serve as the bedrock of the economy, and that bedrock is changing. These changes represent a direct attack against the current banking business model and associated P&Ls. Our Empowered Customer and North America Consumer Technographics data tells us: Only 50% of bank customers are willing to keep their existing level of business with their […]