I’ve just been doing a roadshow of events that focus upon Digital Finance with Sitecore, a software development company focused upon digital customer experiences.
During the roadshow, they’ve been presenting research in the four countries of focus – Finland, France, Italy and Poland – of how electronic channels and customer relationships are changing.
The research was performed by IDG Connect over the festive season between November 2013 and January 2014, and involved interviews with over 40 digital marketers, analysts and strategists from banks and insurance companies in each country (173 interviews in total).
The results are now released in infographic and PowerPoint form, and prove very interesting as it shows that no country is the same.
For example, when asked Which digital channels are best suited for particular types of financial transactions?, the results came back as follows:
As can be seen, Italians like tablet computers, the French lead in mobile, whilst the Poles and Finish want to stay with their desktops.
This corroborates something I've said often but not often on this blog: no country can be treated the same when it comes to banking.
The Spanish and Germans love branches; the French hate call centres; the British want to bank in a way where they never have to deal with a human; and the Italians would rather just take the cash.
Now I'm bordering on stereotypes here myself, but it is true that the use of digital is different in every country and even in every region.
Northern-Western Germans behave more like the Dutch whilst South-Western Germans more like the French. That is unsurprising as borders are so close.
Therefore, when someone says branches are dead or that all transactions should move to mobile, don't believe them.
Believe what is right for your customer in your country.
There’s a lot more depth to the IDG research, but you should have attended the meetings where these results were released if you wanted to see them in full.
However, in the spirit of not being mean, if you want to know the research in your country - Finland, France, Italy and Poland – ask me or Sitecore – and, purely because my next event is in Milan on 4th June, here's the Italian infographic (register if you want to come for free and doubleclick image for a bigger version or download Image as PDF):
Chris M Skinner
Chris Skinner is best known as an independent commentator on the financial markets through his blog, TheFinanser.com, as author of the bestselling book Digital Bank, and Chair of the European networking forum the Financial Services Club. He has been voted one of the most influential people in banking by The Financial Brand (as well as one of the best blogs), a FinTech Titan (Next Bank), one of the Fintech Leaders you need to follow (City AM, Deluxe and Jax Finance), as well as one of the Top 40 most influential people in financial technology by the Wall Street Journal's Financial News. To learn more click here...
