When it comes to financial services, the tech landscape is changing rapidly. For many, it can prove difficult to keep up with the pace, let alone position themselves at the forefront of the digital revolution. This can have ramifications, too; with the UK's fintech sector employing over 60,000 people, competition is high. Embracing evolving technologies can attract and retain staff, as well as contribute to a consistent level of customer satisfaction.

With the sector contributing £7 billion a year to the UK economy, tech must form the backbone of the growing industry. It’s essential that firms are enriched by their tech choices, not held back or damaged by lagging infrastructure.

Moving past legacy models

Despite great potential at your fingertips, many financial organisations depend on outdated IT infrastructures with legacy systems to run their business.

Undoubtedly, it’s more challenging to effectively run vital programs with limited resources. Despite this, many financial organisations are reluctant to update hardware and invest in software upgrades needed to bring their organisation’s systems into the modern age. This can be due to a variety of factors, particularly focused on expected cost or lack of knowledge when it comes to the most effective outlay.

In the current economy, it's important more than ever that businesses invest in more efficient onboarding processes for their employees. When you're faced with constant opportunities in the marketplace, you’re best staying with a company that gives you access to the latest technologies.

This process can be overwhelming to get underway. But a recent survey of 150 financial services companies found that more respondents expect to increase investment in IT over the next year (compared to the last 12 months). Clearly, there's never been a better time to jump on the digital transformation train in order to keep up with ever-increasing customer expectations, and to lower your operational costs.

Data headaches

Customer data is proving increasingly important in financial services. It is seen as a valuable asset, providing insight into a person’s needs and their specific preferences. This valuable asset allows you to gain insights into your customer’s needs and preferences, which along with the latest technology, you can use to predict behaviour and spending intent.

At the same time, more and more data is needing to be collected and stored. Ageing legacy models are not built to retain these swathes of information and can slow down as a result, or worse, crash and lose it all. The same goes for security; older IT systems can be exploited due to their lack of reliability and weak software.

A 2023 survey by Sophos revealed that the rate of ransomware attacks in financial services continues to rise. 64% of respondents noted an attack in 2023, up from 55% in 2022, and almost double the 34% rate in 2021. Falling victim to these attacks can have a devastating impact for businesses, both in monetary and reputational terms. 

So what can you do to make sure you stay at the forefront of financial innovation? One thing that's on everyone's lips right now is cloud-based workflow automation. By consolidating teams, data and processes to a single platform, all operations are streamlined and manual tasks are automated, eliminating the need for paper forms and mundane data entry. Business leaders of financial institutions can also be given peace of mind that everything important is kept under virtual lock and key.

Staying a step ahead

Legacy technology in financial institutions can be a significant obstacle to delivering optimal customer service. Slow performance, coupled with countless vulnerabilities, can hold firms back in competition with modern fintech trailblazers. But the good news is that it doesn’t have to stay like that.

There are specific cloud-based platforms with solutions designed specifically for the financial sector with all of your biggest challenges in mind. By embracing these modern solutions, you’re able to escape from the bewildering legacy maze.