Eliminating systems-change headaches as a roadblock for new business.
With certain bank counterparty concerns reemerging, efforts by banks to ease customer switch-over the last 18 months may pay off in new customers.
As many treasury managers know, a major roadblock to switching banks is the prospect of migrating to their systems. “It’s enough of a headache, that you want to stay with the bank you have,” one treasury manager noted at a recent NeuGroup peer meeting.
Realizing this, global banks like HSBC that are looking to pick up business from struggling competitors have taken steps to make switching easier, even if it is one country at a time. Here’s how:
Integrate delivery channels. Integrated delivery means two things. Fist, if a new product or service is being offered make sure it available across all electronic channels. In HBSCs case, for example, it should be available on its HSBCnet browser interface as well as host-to-host via HSBC Connect or SWIFT. Second, a bank customer profile should carry over across all channels, including any local bank connectivity interface. Since many banks have grown their presence recently in new markets, particularly in emerging markets, their ability to integrate legacy local connectivity with their global platforms is a key differentiator and often critical to making it easier for prospective customers to consider a switch. This process starts with the global profile being integrated with the local one for common sign-on and cross-access for local and cross-border accounts, products and services.
Integrate with Swift. Corporate SWIFT connectivity has certainly progressed dramatically with interest in hot swapping banks. Banks that develop their proprietary systems in the same direction as SWIFT, with the same XML standards and piggy-back on their system architecture also make it easier to switch to their bank for corporates that choose to remain on their proprietary platform. In the process, current and future SWIFT migration from the bank platform will be made easier.
Integrate customer-facing project management. Regardless of the technology, implementation projects usually owe their success to the effectiveness of who is implementing. Having a dedicated project leader with a similarly focused project team on both sides is one success factor. As is the bank’s ability to coordinate a project via the customer’s preferred relationship interface. For a country-level switch in Latin America for example, it may be helpful for a European corporate to interface with a London-based team connected to the local implementers and coordinated by its principal relationship manager. Knowing that they are not going to have to deal with a whole new area of the bank, but rather with people they trust to get the job done, can aid treasurers with making the decision to switch.
While switching banks on a country by country basis may be more manageable then regionally or globally all at once, it is still not as easy as just getting a new login token. Still, working with banks that take the steps to ease a change implementation, stand a much better chance of getting treasury managers to agree to something that typically leads to many headaches.